Ghosts Shouldn't Be This Annoying
by Erisolalldayeveryday
Summary: Sollux, Mituna, and Simon Captor all move into a new house. It's a mansion and Sollux has no idea how his father managed to afford it. It's just good luck, right? Wrong. Soon the Captor family finds the ghosts of the Amporas, who used to live there. Things happen, and I might give away the whole plot if I say any more. Ships will be Erisol, Crotuna, and Dualpsii.
1. Bathrooms Are Creepy

Whelp, I came over here from AO3 and decided hey, let's put this over here. I've already done 9 chapters, so those are already here, and they'll be over 1,000 words a chapter because mild OCD, but sometimes I write more than 2,000. Well, enjoy!

1. Bathrooms Are Creepy

Your name is Sollux Captor and your life sucks. Well, it sucks even more than usual. You're moving to a new house, far away from your old apartment in Northern Oregon to a new house in the Californian Valley. You didn't know anything about the house, of course; your father, Simon, said it was surprise. It's just like him to do shit like this. You're on a plane right now, regretting life decisions that had led up to this moment. With only an hour left to go on the flight to the airport, you're dicking around on your phone and listening to music, absently petting your brother's mop of brown hair as he lays his head in your lap and sleeps. You just want to go to sleep in your old bed, not whatever new one you have at the new house. You just really don't want to live in a new house.

While you were distracted with these thoughts, you had arrived at the airport and you're getting off the plane. The airport's boring enough that you zone out as you grab your luggage plus 'Tuna's, then hand his to him. Next comes the taxi ride to your new house and- holy shit.

Holy motherfucking shit.

It's a goddamn mansion.

How did your father even afford this?

Well, he does do a lot of computer work for important people, but damn, how did he get the money for this? Whatever, you're not questioning it. As 'Tuna walks inside to explore, you help your father unpack stuff from the moving trucks that had driven everything down here. You don't have a lot of stuff, but you definitely need to go shopping later.

As you're unpacking a light bedside table, you ask your dad, "How did you afford thith?"

He just turns to you with a smile and says, "It was super cheap! Isn't that great?"

You roll your eyes and mutter, "Yeah, great." If moving away from all your friends is great.

'Tuna comes back out to help with stuff, grinning and going on about how big the house is. Once everything is unpacked, you have to start carrying stuff inside. Best to save the most work for last, right? You start with the light stuff, like tables and chairs in the living room (more like a small house) and the dining room (you're pretty sure it's the size of your old apartment) that 'Tuna helps you with. You help your dad with some of the heavier stuff, like the dining room table (dwarfed by the room) and the TV. Eventually you're able to take your bedroom stuff upstairs, and your dad shows you your bedroom- damn. Is everything in this house in extra large form? You get a whole room to yourself, one that comes with its own bathroom and a master bed. Wow. 'Tuna even has a room right next to yours, which is a plus.

You collapse on the bed, fatigue overcoming you as you curl up. Then your dad reminds you that you still have stuff to take upstairs. You groan and get back up, going downstairs to get the stuff that you had forgotten you had to take upstairs in your tiredness. It seemed to take forever: the nightstand, a dresser, a bookshelf, a desk, a chair, a lamp. and your suitcases (some of which your dad had to help you with) but when you're finally finished, you lie down on your bed and close your eyes, ready to go to sleep even if it's only 4 in the afternoon.

Then you hear a noise in the bathroom.

You open one eye cautiously, just to peer towards the bathroom. There's nothing. You sigh and close your eye again, returning to darkness. You hear another noise and sit up suddenly, squinting suspiciously towards the bathroom with your brown and blue eyes. There's yet another noise, like something falling, and you get up and slam the door to the bathroom open, ready to yell at anyone who's in here. Except…

There's no one in there.

You blink, once, twice, then start looking around for the thing(s) that might have fallen. They turn out to be a couple of old bottles of hair gel; must be from the last owners. Ew. You throw it away immediately. You don't style your hair, and even if you did, this old shit wouldn't do any good to your hair.

That's when you hear a whisper from behind you. You whirl around, scowling, but there's still no one there. You couldn't make out what it said, but it was definitely an annoyed whisper. You roll your eyes and walk back to your bed. You're just hearing things. It's an old house, there's bound to be weird noises, right? You crawl into bed and pull the covers up, curling up under them and falling asleep.

"Thollux! Wake up!"

You groan, flapping your hand in the direction of whoever's speaking.

"Thith ith important!"

You sigh and open your eyes, just to see a scared-looking Mituna. Oh shit. You and 'Tuna are closer than anything; you shared a bed back in your apartment in Oregon, and told each other everything. You two share a lot of things, everything from your lisp and heterochromatic eyes to food to your love of bees. You comfort each other also. If he's scared of something, that's really not good. You sit up and frown, asking, "What happened?"

"I thaw thomething in my room!"

"… Yeah? What wath it?"

"It wath a thigarette!"

"The old ownerth could've left it there, 'Tuna."

"But I went to pick it up and throw it away, and it dithappeared!"

Huh. Well, that's new. "Are you sure you didn't jutht imagine it?"

"C'mon Thollux, I didn't imagine it!"

You stand up, stretching, "Fine, show me where it wath then."

'Tuna grabs your hand and pulls you out of your room, then into the door on the right of your room. His room is bee-themed it seems, and he has his own bathroom also. He points to a spot right near his desk, scowling and saying, "It wath right here. Right here, I thwear."

"Well, it'th not there now and that'th what matterth, right?" you answer, half-smiling and putting a hand on his shoulder to guide him away from the spot.

He looks down at the ground, then mutters, "I gueth."

"Good. I'm going back to thleep now, good night," you start to exit the room, but he stops you and says, "Dad called uth down for dinner, that'th why I wath going upthstairth to tell you! But I had to thtop in my room to take my shoeth off when… that happened."

"Alright, I'm coming down," you say and go downstairs with 'Tuna to the dining room. When you walk in, you look around with wonder. The size of it will never fail to impress you. The table in the middle looks long enough to fit 50 people at least, and your father is sitting at the head nearest the door that you and 'Tuna walked through. He has dinner on the table, just chicken and mashed potatoes. You sit down next to your dad while 'Tuna sits across from you, immediately diving into his meal. You start on your mashed potatoes, eating slowly.

"So do you two like the new house?" your father asks the both of you, smiling.

"It'th tho big!" 'Tuna replies, grinning between mouthfuls of chicken.

"It'th pretty cool," you say, thinking back to the noises in the bathroom and wondering about those again. No, fuck, it was just the house- you shove the thoughts to the back of your mind.

"That's good. It was so cheap, and it's really big, which is a plus! This house was really a catch," your father says mostly to himself, eating with a grin.

You don't say it out loud, but to be honest, you're expecting there's a catch somewhere in this deal. Like maybe you only have this house for a month, or half of it you can't use, or there's dead bodies in the basement. Hell, you wouldn't be surprised if there WEREdead bodies in the basement. Then again, there were the noises from your bathroom- nope. Not going there.

You finally finish your dinner, then excuse yourself to go to your room and get some real sleep. You change into pajamas, then take a lingering look at your laptop and decide sleep really isn't that important and getting online is instead. You sit at your desk and start typing away, coming up with a virus to send to KK or something. He's your online friend; you met over Pesterchum. You two had a love-hate relationship, always sniping at each other, but you would comfort each other when one was upset.

Of course, part of it was sending him viruses that wouldn't destroy his computer but messed up things like only opening up porn sites when he tries to go online or changing all curse words to "diddly-darn". KK always curses at you for days until you send an anti-virus, which is usually when the joke has lost its hilarity.

Nonetheless, you become immersed in your coding, eyes focused intently on the screen, when suddenly you hear a bang from the bathroom. You're so shocked that you nearly jump out of your chair, your focus shattered. You look over to the bathroom: there's no noises now. You hesitantly get up, then walk over slowly to open the door. It creaks open- great, a stereotypical horror movie scene, now you're going to die- but there's nothing in there.

The noise had sounded like someone had banged on the wall, but you can hear your brother's snoring from here, so it couldn't have been him. It might've been your father, who likes to play pranks sometimes, but you doubt it when you glance at the clock; it's 1 in the morning. You should be asleep. You sigh and go back to your laptop, shutting it down and crawling into bed, pulling the covers up around you.

Even when you're covered in blankets, you can't help but shiver and feel like someone's watching you.


	2. The New Guy Is A Dick

2. The New Guy Is a Dick

You cannot fuckin' believe this. Some asshole waltzes in and collapses on YOUR bed in YOUR room, just like he goddamn owns the place- oh wait, you guess he and his family own the place now. You sigh and sit on the floor, head in hand, as he closes his eyes, but there's still anger coursing through you. Everything about him pisses you off completely, from his two-toned glasses to his mismatched shoes. You growl and stand back up, then go into the bathroom to try to calm down. You always do bad things when you get out of control, and now could be one of those times- no, stop.

You need to calm the fuck down. You sigh and punch the wall; punching things always makes you feel better, since you can't try to meditate or breathe in counts. You can't really remember what it's like to breathe. You punch the wall again for good measure, just because the new guy can't tell what you punch and oh look at that you knocked your old bottles of hair gel over. You don't have any particular need of them now, seeing as most of your hair flops in your face anyway.

Then the door slams open and you jump, turning to see a furious boy. You watch carefully as the angry expression on his face slowly morphs to confused, then curiosity. He looks around and locates the bottles, looking disgusted before throwing them in the trash.

You, furious, yell, "Wwhat the fuck, those wwere prime fuckin' bottles a hair gel an you just threww them awway!"

He can't hear you, of course; that doesn't make you any less mad, though. He whirls around anyway, as if he did hear you and you shrink away, worried. Then he realizes nobody's there (but you) and rolls his eyes, leaving. You follow him, watching him as he gets back into bed and falls asleep. You settle on the floor again and lie down; you can't really remember what it feels like to sleep either.

A while later, your staring match with the ceiling is broken as another boy runs into the room, yelling a name… "Thollux?" You think it might really be "Sollux", but you have no idea. You note that the two boys look a lot alike, although the one that ran in, who Sollux seems to call "Tuna" (which is a weird-ass name) has more hair, and is a lot louder. They both have the eyes, though, and you think those are lisps? That's adorable.

You listen to "Tuna"'s story about finding a cigarette in his room and it disappearing- oh hell no. Hell motherfucking no. You growl; this only has one explanation.

Cronus.

You storm out of the room, down the hall to what used to be your older brother's room and burst in, seething. There he is, the asshole, holding an unlit cigarette in his mouth and combing his hair. "Hey, chief. Vwhat's up?" he asks in that lazy tone of his. Fuck, it makes you angry.

"Wwhat's up is you nearly got caught by the kid in your room," you growl, glaring at him.

"I didn't do no harm by it."

"He saww your fuckin' cigarette, Cro!"

"So? He ain't gonna suspect nothin'."

"He already told the asshole livvin' in my room!"

"I dont see vwhy vwe can't just showv ourselvwes to them in the first place!"

"'Cause they'd freak out and probably tell stories to the wwhole town!"

"Bullshit, they'd just leavwe an' flee the towvn or somethin' stupid!"

You're about to fire off a retort when Sollux and Tuna walk in, Tuna showing Sollux the exact place where he found the cigarette, which happens to be right where you're standing, next to the chair Cronus is sitting on. You jump out of the way and watch as Sollux shrugs off Tuna's claims as bullshit, then they leave. Fuck, Sollux is kinda cute- nope, stop that. You're dead, you're not allowed to have crushes on the living, you learned that after- not going there either.

You sigh and yank Cronus out of his chair, leading him downstairs to where your father waits. Orpheus "Dualscar" Ampora, head of the Ampora family and owner of a massive fortune. Part of that fortune got them this mansion, while the rest was to go to Cronus Ampora and Eridan Ampora, both heirs of the Ampora fortune. They were to go on to become wealthy businessmen, but that was all ruined when all 3 died.

After they died, the money was given away, mostly to charities and certain businesses.

You shake all of this out of your head, most of the info from magazines and tabloids. Your father nods to you both and you all walk into the dining room, where the new family is eating dinner. You lick your lips; oh, what it would be to eat again and feel full.

You ignore these thoughts and sit down then turn to your father, sitting at the opposite head of the table of Sollux and Tuna's father.

"Well, here we are, a new family moved into our house," your father starts, but you cut him off with, "Wwe don't need the lecture, wwe knoww not to mess wwith them or fuck anythin' up."

"I was talking," he looks at you coldly, and you remember he wasn't nicknamed "Dualscar" for nothing. Those two scars on his face make him downright menacing. "As I was saying, a new family has moved into our house. We are not to bother them, for obvious reasons. I've already heard about your cigarette incident, Cronus; make sure it does not happen again."

"Yes, sir," Cronus mumbles, looking down sheepishly.

"Good. You're not off the hook either, Eridan. I heard those bangs coming from the younger boy's bathroom."

"He threww my hair gel bottles awway!"

"You don't need them, do you?"

You sigh. "… No, sir."

"Good. I believe I made myself clear; you two are excused, as the new family- the Captors, they're called- are finished with dinner."

"Yes, father." "Yes, sir."

You abscond as quickly as you can after that, which, because of being a ghost, is pretty damn fast. You find Sollux in your- fuck, his room, changing into different clothes, and you blush and turn away because just because you're a ghost doesn't mean you're going to creep on every piece of hot ass in the town, fuck.

You turn back around when you see something light up- his laptop? What is he doing on his laptop? You peer over his shoulder to see a bunch of numbers you couldn't even begin to understand and sit on his desk instead, swinging your legs and watching him type.

You look at his face, the way he hunches over- that's terrible posture, you note as you sit up a bit straighter-, the way his fingers move fast as he types, as if he's done this a million times- wow he must be really good with those fingers-, the way his eyes go all squinty behind his glasses- wait a second. You do a double-take, then scoot closer and take a second look at his glasses.

They're fuckin' brown and blue.

One is brown and the other is blue.

Wow.

'That's why he wears 3-D glasses; what a douche' is your first thought. Then you think, 'Maybe he's self-conscious about it.' Now you feel like a douche. You sigh and go back to watching him, definitely not being a creeper. You end up watching him for hours, entranced in the way he concentrates so fully on this one thing.

It ends up being 1 in the morning when you finally snap out of it, realizing how late it is and noticing that Sollux is still… doing whatever the fuck it is he's doing on his laptop. He probably needs to sleep. How to snap him out of it without him noticing you… you sneak over to the bathroom, though why you're sneaking you don't know you're a fucking ghost he can't see you.

You go up to a wall, summon energy, and bang really hard on the wall. There's a few seconds of silence, then the door creaks open and he looks in, suspicious. Then he leaves and you follow him as he shuts down his laptop, then gets into his bed.

You sit against the wall and watch him, wishing you knew what it was like to be able to sleep again.


	3. There's Something Watching-

3. There's Something Watching- Why Does It Smell Like Douchebag In Here?

Your name is Mituna Captor and you are really fucking excited. All the time. You were excited to move to California, excited to move into a new house, excited to meet people in the small town you're living in now- until you found the cigarette on your floor. You did a double-take, went to inspect (because you don't smoke and don't own cigarettes) when it disappeared. It fucking disappeared.

You ran to get Sollux, who disproved you even though you protested you really saw it. He doesn't believe you, but he convinced you, and now it's okay.

Well, it was okay until you started feeling like someone was watching you wherever you were in the house. In your bedroom, in the kitchen, in the game-room (a whole room dedicated to video games and board games- this house is fucking sweet), sometimes even in the bathroom. Frankly, it's starting to freak you out. You would mention it to Sollux or maybe even your father, but they'd just dismiss your claims as results of an overactive imagination. Not to say you don't have an overactive imagination; you do! You just think something's- or someone's- really watching you.

Which is how you find yourself sitting in your room with the Ouija board your father got you as a joke one time, calling out to the spirits. It certainly isn't a joke now.

"Hello? Ith… (fuck your lisp) ith there anyone out there?" you say, your hand on the Ouija board, feeling stupider and stupider by the minute. It's just your overactive imagination, you're imagining things, it isn't real- oh shit. Your hand is moving, and it's not you. Your hand moves the piece slowly, dramatically to "Yes". Well then.

"Um… are you a good thpirit?" you ask, suddenly feeling nervous. Your hand moves again, this time to… between the yes and no? "Tho… it'th a maybe?" It moves to yes. "What'th your name?" you ask, feeling even more nervous by the second. Your hand moves to "C", then "R", "O", "N", "U" and "S". "Cronuth?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. It moves off to the side, then back to the "S". You scowl; it's a mischievous spirit, making fun of your lisp. "Fine then, CRONUTH," you put extra emphasis on the "th" sound.

Your hand moves to "Good Bye", and you protest, "Wait, I still have more questionth!" There's a pause, then "OK" is spelled out. You sigh in relief, then ask, "Are you a malevolent thpirit, then?" Your hand moves back to the "S", and you growl in frustration. "You know what I mean!" You hear faint laughing, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Then your hand moves to "NO", and you grin. "Jutht a thpirit who'th thtuck in the living world until you complete whatever tathk you have left to do, right?"

"YES".

"What ith your tathk?"

Your name is Cronus Ampora, and you are having the time of your life. This kid (who's only a few years younger than you) decided it would be a great idea to break out the Ouija board and try to communicate with ghosts- which means you. You're having a fuckin' laugh as you give him weird answers, and make fun of his lisp, which completely botches your name.

But when he asks what your task is, you realize you don't know. You've heard plenty of stories about ghosts who get stuck, who have to stay in the living world until they move on to whatever's there for them- that is, if they get over whatever's keeping them with the living. You've been dead for years, but you still haven't figured out your purpose here. You suppose Eridan and your father haven't either, if they're stuck here with you.

You sigh and put a hand over his, moving it to "I", "D", "K". The kid, "Mituna" you think his father called him, grunts in frustration, and you have to stifle a snicker because that's pretty damn cute. Him and his lisp are pretty cute. You'd probably tap that- you know, if you were still alive.

Being alive… you remember it vaguely. Your tragically cut-short teenage-hood was filled with music-making, along with trying to woo everyone's hearts. It didn't work, of course. Everyone said you were an asshole, playing the "tragic musician who makes heartbreaking music" card. You remember being a kid, too; those days were filled with magic, you remember. You got Eridan into it as well, until you both realized it wasn't real and gave up on it.

Your father yelled at you both that he "wasn't going to let his only heirs waste time with such foolishness" and the usual stuff. That's partly why you both gave it up.

While you had been zoning out, Mituna had asked the same question, several times, only to snap you out of your daze with an angry, "Are you even thtill there?!"

You smirk and lead his hand back to the "S". He lets go and bangs on the table in frustration, standing up and growling, "You're a dick, you know that? I jutht wanted to ask you thome questionth and here you are, making fun of my lithp! You know what, have fun figuring out your tathk or thome shit. I wath trying to help you, you know!"

You panic and grab the planchette, spelling out "WAIT". Mituna sighs, reading the letters, then sits back down and places his hand on the planchette, putting his head in his other hand. "Tho you don't know why you're thtuck here. Do you know how you died?"

You think about that one for a minute. No, you don't; you don't remember how you died, actually. You remember pain, then darkness, then looking down at your own body, but you don't remember anything else. You lead his hand to "NO".

Mituna sighs, "Well, that'th really fucking helpful. Maybe you died in a violent way and that'th why you're thtuck here."

You spasm suddenly, a brief memory overtaking you- fear, quick pain, blissful darkness- but it's gone as suddenly as it came and wow you're lying on the floor, shivering. Mituna's freaking out; apparently the planchette went flying across the room and his hand was jerked to the side and he's yelling, suddenly the other son that looks like him- Sollux?- comes running in, asking what's wrong.

You stand up slowly, still shaking, as you listen to Mituna tell Sollux about the whole thing, from asking you questions to you telling him your name to the whole planchette going flying thing. Sollux just scowls and says, "Quit mething with thpirit bullshit, Tuna! Thith shit never turnth out well for people in horror movieth, why would it turn out well for you?" and packs up the Ouija board, taking it away.

Next thing you know Eridan bursts in, scowling and yelling at you for fucking with the kid, Mituna, "Wwhat the fuck, you could'vve gotten us in big trouble! Wwe probably already are!"

"Keep it dowvn, I don't think Dad has noticed it yet," you hiss, leaning against the bedframe, your knees still weak.

"Noticed what, my dear son?"

You don't even need to look to know it's your father. Just the sense of power filling the room, along with it becoming suddenly much colder. You see Sollux and Mituna freeze up; even if they're human, they can still feel the power radiating from the ghost of Orpheus Ampora. They glance around nervously, then abscond from the room quickly. You wish you could abscond.

"Nothin', father," you reply nervously, standing up straight and facing your father.

"I think you're lying to me. Now, tell me: what am I not noticing?" he asks again, leveling a glare at you that could make any brave man weak-kneed.

You drop your eyes to the ground in shame and mumble, "I might'vwe been messin' a bit vwith the kid."

"What did I tell you about bothering the living humans in our house?"

"He broke out the Ouija board- I couldn't help it!"

"That's no excuse. This will not happen again, will it?"

"No, father."

"That's what I like to hear. Now, go keep an eye on the two sons. Report to me if they suspect anything, and if they do, tell me exactly what they suspect."

"Yes, father."

"Eridan, that's you too. Go with Cronus," your father says, and with that, leaves the room. You and Eridan both sigh in relief. Your father's gone, but now you have to go spy on the twins.

Great.


	4. Don't Mess With Ouija Boards

4. Don't Mess With Ouija Boards

Your name is now Sollux Captor, and you are dealing with your brother's shit once again. He decided it would be a great idea to try and summon spirits with an Ouija board you suspect your father got him, and you have to deal with the consequences. He's going on about some ghost who communicated with him, and how when he said the ghost may have died violently the planchette flew off the board and basically he thinks the ghost flipped out.

So you took away his Ouija board. But while you were arguing about it in his room, you two felt… something enter the room. Neither of you knew what it was, but you knew it was something you didn't mess around with, so you absconded back to your own room.

That was when you told 'Tuna about the weird knocks in your bathroom, and how maybe it was the same ghost? Or it could even be multiple ghosts. That was when he suggested using the Ouija board to find out. You protested; whatever ghost he was communicating with might've seemed nice, but you know there's something- or someone- in this house that isn't so nice. He argued with you and said that neither of you could feel anything right now, and so it might not end up worse than this whole situation already is.

You had sighed and relented, unpacking the board and laying it on the ground between you two. And now you have to ask ghosts questions?

"Come on Thol, you have to put your hand on the planchette," your twin reminds you, and you roll your eyes, placing your hand on it and suddenly feeling really nervous.

You bite your lip, hesitating nervously, then ask, "Um… are there any thpiritth with uth right now?

Your name is Eridan Ampora and you are stuck in a dilemma. On one hand, you really, really want to mess with Sollux and Mituna (your brother informed you the other twin is called), but on the other hand, your father forbid you to mess with them.

What great choices you have.

You sigh and mutter, "Fuck it," before moving Sol's hand to "YES". Oh look at that, you have a nickname for him- you must be growing fond of him. Shut up, inner monologue.

Sol just scowls and mutters, "Great."

What a dick.

"How many ghothtth (haha he means ghosts, that fuckin' lisp though) are there in thith houthe?" Mituna asks, looking around as if to suddenly see ghosts. Amateur.

You look at Cronus, hesitating, "Should wwe tell them?"

"I don't care; you're the one vwith the vwooden thing," he replies, shrugging.

You groan and move his hand to the number "3", deciding that your father's going to find out no matter what. Your father… Orpheus seems to always have eyes around the house. No matter what you're doing, or what Cronus is doing, or perhaps what the new family is doing, he always seems to know. Orpheus actually seems to be able to turn invisible. Not like you and Cronus can, being invisible to humans, but invisible to even ghosts. It's actually kind of creepy.

Nonetheless, while you were thinking about that, Sol and Tuna had both frozen up, Sol frowning slightly. "Tho… are you Cronuth?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

You sigh and put his hand on "NO". Really, this process is so slow. You wish you could just appear to them and tell them everything, but you can't because of stupid ghost rules. Nobody told you there would be ghost rules when you died. Instead, you have to use this Ouija bullshit to communicate. You sigh dramatically, and Cronus just rolls his eyes at you. What an asshole.

"What'th your name then?" Sol asks, raising an eyebrow, then adding hastily, "Wait, ith Cronuth the one in my bathroom or are you or ith it the third ghotht?"

You grumble something about "one question at a fuckin' time" and spell out your name, "ERIDAN" which takes fuckin' forever and you are so done. You decide it would be too much effort to answer his second question, and besides, you know he'll just ask it again, the nerd.

"Are you the one in my bathroom?"

Called it.

You move his hand to "YES", smirking.

"I gueth thothe were your hair gel bottleth, huh. Well, I gueth you don't need them anymore, do you?" he says, shrugging.

You can't help it.

You flip your shit.

You throw the planchette at him, hissing, and when he yells, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" you summon energy to punch him, then tackle him to the ground. He starts yelling again, but when he looks up at you, he freezes. You freeze too- his wide eyes are searching yours, and he looks shocked. Oh shit he can see you. You yelp and throw yourself back, landing squarely on your ass. Good going. Sol sits up and adjusts his dumb glasses, still looking at you like you're some sort of god.

"Vwhat the fuck, Eri! Vwe need to go right nowv!" Cro hisses at you somewhere off to the side, but you just shrug.

"Wwhy? They'vve already seen me, it's not like they can unsee me," you snap at him, irritated.

He hisses in annoyance but appears anyway, crossing his arms in annoyance.

"Excuthe you, but who the fuck are you?" you hear from your left, and you turn to see Sol looking very confused and very angry, and the two mixed together on his face makes him look very hot and wow you have to deal with words now.

"Uh. Um. I'm. Wwe're. Uh."

"Vwhat he means to say is that vwe're ghosts and vwe shouldn't evwen be talkin' to ya," Cronus cuts in, glaring at you and the twins. He must be upset.

"Well damn, thith mutht be Cronuth," Mituna adds in, smirking, "I'd know that thathy attitude anywhere."

Cronus growls and starts "thhh"ing at him, and Mituna just scowls.

"Okay knock it off you twwo," you say as you roll your eyes.

"I can't help it if he sounds fuckin' hilarious vwhen he says 'sassy'," Cronus replies snarkily, throwing a smirk towards Mituna.

"At leatht I don't trip on my w'th and v'th," Mituna says, smirking right back.

"Wwill ya twwo break it up already? You're givvin' me a headache," you growl, glaring at both of them.

"It'th not like you're keeping it down yourthelf," Sollux says to you, grinning cheekily.

You scowl and spit out, "They wwere the ones fuckin' arguin'."

"And nowv you tvwo are the ones fuckin' arguin'! Vwhy don't vwe start this ovwer, huh? I'm Cronus an' I'm dead," Cronus says flatly, putting his unlit cigarette behind his ear.

"Tho it wath your cigarette I thaw the other day!" Mituna says, his eyes widening.

"An' I'm Eridan. I'm also dead," you cut Mituna off before he can say anything else.

"I'm Thollux and thith ith Mituna," Sollux says, but you roll your eyes and say, "Wwe knoww."

"How do you know our nameth already?" Mituna scowls, crossing his arms.

"Ghosts hear evverythin'. Seriously evverythin'," you reply, sitting up straight as you dust off your skinny jeans.

"You're a fucking creep, thpying on all of uth," Sollux says, rolling his eyes at you.

"Hey, I ain't a fuckin' creep! It's not like I'vve been spyin' on you in the showwer or bathroom or wwhen you change. I turn around like a proper flippin' gentleman," you snap, crossing your arms.

"Tho you're only thpying on me the retht of the time? That maketh me feel loadth better," he replies sarcastically, crossing his arms to mimic you. Then, before you can say anything, he scowls and asks, "Were you the one fucking around in my bathroom? Oh my god, were thoth YOUR hair gel bottleth? Fuck, I'm glad I threw them away now," he snickers, and wow he has a nasally laugh.

"Those wwere prime fuckin' bottles an' I don't knoww wwhy you'd throww them awway! Besides, if there's anyone you wwant to fear being wwatched by it's my father," you grumble, figuring you've given enough away already. Why not a little more?

"Who'th your father?" Mituna asks, raising an eyebrow. How clueless.

"He's none other than the famous Orpheus fuckin' Ampora, wwho else?" you reply, scowling again.

"I think I've heard of him," Sollux mutters thoughtfully, frowning as he thinks. Wow that's kind of cute. Wait, no it's not, stop it.

"Wwho hasn't heard a him?" you ask, snorting.

"Don't be such an asshole, Eri," your brother cuts in, glaring.

"Don't be such a douche then," you reply, glaring right back.

"Guyth, can you calm down for a thecond?" Sollux groans, then continues, scowling, "Look, thith ith what I know. So we're being haunted by a group of athholeth with thtupid accentth, who don't know how they died, and tho bathically we should go on a hunt for info on how you died."

"You don't havve to do that, you knoww. Wwe're fine not knowwin'," you mumble, playing with your fingernails.

"I don't think tho. Both 'Tuna and I have thchool on Monday, which ith jutht in a couple dayth. We're lucky Dad moved uth at the beginning of a new year. Anyway, we can go to the thchool library or the local library and find out thome info. Onthe we do, we'll get back to you, okay?" Sollux says, raising an eyebrow.

"Fuckin' fine, do wwhatevver you wwant, see if I givve a fuck," you snap, then huff and storm out of the room.

People can be stubborn assholes sometimes.


	5. Libraries Smell Good

5. Libraries Smell Good

Your name is Sollux, and you are so fucking confused. So there are ghosts in your house apparently. Hot ghosts, but they're assholes and ghosts so you wouldn't go anywhere near that with your dick. Nonetheless, you DO want to know how the Amporas died, so here you and Mituna are at the library, wandering aimlessly.

Neither of you know where the fuck to look, but you're sure one of you will figure it out. It wouldn't be in the fiction section, no… the non-fiction section? Probably not… you promptly face-palm, earning more than a few weird looks, as you realize there's a town records section. That might be it.

You motion to Mituna and you both walk over, and it's just a bunch of papers in over-filled books, and papers strewn all over the floor. It's messy, even for a library. You'd think they'd have someone to clean this up.

Now you just have to work on your next problem, which is trying to find the book that contains death records of the Amporas, or just important people.

You step over all the papers, mildly angry at them being on the floor. It's such a small town, you don't know why the fuck they're all over the floor. Is the whole town going through these records? Jesus.

"Hey Tuna, can you go through these paperth?" you ask, and he nods, sitting down and starting to sift through the papers.

Then you spy a computer and silently pump your fist in the air because fuck yeah they've got a computer and sit down in the chair, thinking about what to search. Maybe "Amporas"? You bite your lip as you type the name in the library search engine, then click "Search".

Aaaand nothing comes up.

What a load of bullshit.

You grumble and try "Ampora Mansion", the name of the house you live in now, and still nothing. You turn to Mituna and ask, "Hey Tuna, have you found anything yet?"

"Nope," he replies sullenly, and you sigh. Back to the computer you go.

You two have spent hours in the library, you on the computer and Tuna going through books and papers.

How much have you two found on the Amporas?

Fucking nothing.

It has been hours, and neither of you have found anything on the Amporas. You've tried searching every variation of "Ampora" possible, you tried "mansion", you even tried their individual nicknames, but nothing's come up.

How is this even possible? Did you just imagine the whole thing? … No, that's not possible, Tuna saw it too. But if they did live in this town, then why can't you find anything on them or their deaths? It just doesn't make any sense.

You decide to go with plan whatever it is: the librarian.

You don't normally talk to the librarian- or for that matter, anyone. You're an antisocial little shit who prefers talking to people via electronics more than face to face, so obviously talking to anybody you don't know would be pretty hard. But you're doing this for Eridan. The Amporas, you mean. Yeah.

You steel your nerves and slowly walk up to the librarian's desk. The librarian is young, maybe a little older than you with shoulder-length black hair and a pretty blue dress. "Can I help you?" she asks sweetly, smiling.

She's kinda cute, wow. You find yourself stumbling over your words, "Um, I wath, uh, looking for thome information on, uh… the old houthe that I live in… now. Yeah."

She smiles, trying very hard not to laugh as she puts her head on her hands and fuck it's because of your lisp isn't it- "Oh my goodness, you're so cute. Tell me, where do you live?"

Thank fuck it's not your lisp. "Uh, the old Ampora houthe," you manage to stammer out.

The effect is immediate. She draws back, growing pale. "Don't mention that name," she whispers, looking around as if to see people coming around the corner with guns and handcuffs.

You raise an eyebrow and ask, "Why not?"

"Don't ask," she replies hurriedly and wow that's definitely going to convince you to not ask, wow. "There was an incident a while ago, ok? Nobody talks about it. So don't ask anybody or you could get yourself in some real trouble."

You raise your other eyebrow then, but shrug and reply, "Fine," before walking back to the section with the town history. "Come on Tuna, it'th time to go," you say, poking him with your shoe.

"Fine then, athhole," he swats at your foot, but gets up anyway and follows you out of the library, and you nod at the librarian as you go by. She solemnly nods back.

"Get your ghothty ath out here, ED," you say as soon as you walk into your room, dumping your phone and wallet on your bed.

Nothing responds.

You sigh and say, "I know you're creeping around, jutht appear already. I need to talk to you."

He suddenly appears next to you, arms crossed and ever-present scowl on his face. "Wwhat the fuck do you wwant?"

You scowl right back and snap, "Well fine, I wath going to tell you that I did hourth of fucking rethearch for you in the library and even talked to a thtranger but fine, if you don't want that information, fucking fine."

"You don't havve to be so fuckin' dramatic about it, Jesus, Sol," Eridan snaps right back at you and you are so fucking done with him.

"Hourth. Of. Fucking. Rethearch," you repeat, glaring at him.

"Fuckin' research? An' just for me? Howw cute," he smirks, and you want to smack that smirk right off his face.

"That ithn't what I meant, athhole. Look, I found nothing in the computer recordth and Tuna found nothing in the archiveth, but that'th not the weird part. When I went to athk the librarian, I told her I wanted to know about the Ampora houthe and she completely froze up. Told me not to talk about it, don't mention it to anybody, all that creepy shit. Tho I figure you died in some creepy ath shit way," you finish up, poker-faced as you stare at him.

He'd been looking progressively more done with your shit with each word you said, and he just looks so done right now. "Look, I appreciate all this fuckin' wwork, but you didn't need to do that. Wwe'vve all come to terms wwith our deaths, so you really didn't need to do all this wwork."

You sigh loudly, then repeat, "I already fucking thaid that I want to know how you died. I am not doing thith for you, or for anybody elthe. Maybe I'm doing it a tiny bit so you guyth can move on with your ghothtly life, ok? But I'm mainly doing thith so I can live a happy, ghotht-free life. Got it?"

He looks hurt, and yeah you did say some hurtful things. Before you can fix your mistakes, he promptly disappears, and you sigh and face-palm. "Fucking DAMMIT, ED," you growl. Now you have to figure out this shit on your own, and apparently secretly. You can't let this get out, according to the librarian.

Little did you know, but in the exact same town a man sits in front of a computer, scowling and grumbling. Some kid is researching the Ampora house? Great, another one to get rid of. He stands up and grabs his coat, grumbling some more as he exits the room.


	6. School Sucks So Much

6. School Sucks So Much

Your name is now Eridan Ampora, as it has always been, what are you talking about? Anyway, you get to be home with your own family as the Captor family leaves. It's Monday, and while Mr. Captor (whose name is Simon) goes to work, Sollux and Mituna get to go to high school. Oh joy.

You remember high school, and to be honest, you wish you didn't. The last time you went there was in the third quarter of your junior year, and your other 2 years weren't very memorable. You remember getting picked on, of course, for what you wore. You wore a scarf, usually, and tight jeans and always long-sleeved shirts. Most everything you wore was purple, a violet color (which is still your favorite color) so you got called "gay" a lot. Not that you weren't- well, you're bi- but it hurt sometimes when they would say it with a sneer as they beat you up.

High school wasn't the best time of your life, is your point. It was a small high school anyway, because it's a small town, but still, high school life was pretty much a living hell. You'd gladly never go back. Oh wait, you can't, because you're dead. Funny how that works. You don't have to go to high school, yay! All you have to pay is your life.

Shaking yourself out of your gloomy thoughts, you get up off of Sollux's bed and walk downstairs, where your father and brother are waiting at the dining room table. Well, this can't be good.

"Yes, father?" you ask as innocently as you can, sitting down a couple seats away. No need to be in the blast zone.

"Don't play dumb, Eridan. You know what you did," he says in a flat tone, his hands in fists on the table.

You look down, playing with your rings as you ask, "Do I noww?"

"Eridan."

You look up at him, and shit he looks really serious- even more serious than usual. "Yes?"

"I gave you one job. Do you know what that one job was?" he asks, glaring at you. Sometimes you completely forget he was once this menacing man who made other grown men piss their pants just by looking at them.

"It wwas to spy on them, sir," you mumble, looking back down.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you," he snaps, and your head shoots up to look at him so fast you think your gave yourself whiplash. "You were to spy on them. Now can you tell me what you did instead?"

You look over at Cronus, who's looking away from both of you, guilt etched into his face. So he told him, huh. You look back at your father and reply tonelessly, "I revvealed myself to them. I lost control an' nearly punched one in the face, an' told them pretty much evverythin' about us."

"And Cronus here tells me the younger Captor has been doing research in the library. Is this true?" your father asks, and Cronus winces, keeping his eyes firmly on the floor away from both of you.

"Yes it is. I told him not to, that it wwasn't necessary, but he did it anywway," you say, scowling at that memory. He had hurt you with his words about only researching your deaths to get rid of you. That was rude of him, but what can you do about it? You don't imagine you'd much like living with ghosts either, if you were him.

"And he did it anyway. Of course. Look son, I don't want to punish you. You know that, right?"

"But you're goin' to anywway," you mutter, looking down at your hands in your lap.

"What was that?" your father snaps.

"Nothin'," you reply, looking back up at him and he has the glare on his face again and wow if you still slept that would give you nightmares.

He growls and says, "What I'm saying is I don't want to punish you, but a lesson has to be taught. There's no more interacting with any of the humans, you got it?"

You sigh and mumble, "Yes, sir."

"Good. You can go now," he says, then stands and disappears. You storm away from the table and go upstairs, not able to even look at Cronus right now. He ratted you out to your father? What a dick.

You collapse on your bed- ugh, you'll never get used to calling it Sollux's. Well, since nobody's home but your asshole family, looks like you have to find something to do. You look around the room: boring, boring, boring- and wow, even more boring! You sigh and turn on your side, wishing you could sleep so you could pass the time.

Then your eyes land on his laptop.

Score!

You get up and walk over, running your hands over it. Who knows what kind of juicy stuff he has on here? You make your hands able to touch things in the living world, just your hands (it'll look weird to anybody who walks in- just a pair of hands floating above a laptop? Creepy), and open the laptop to turn it on. This must be one of those super fancy computers because it boots up in like 2 seconds.

Then you get to his password screen.

FUCK.

What would his password even be? Maybe something he likes?

You look around his room for clues. There's a lot of red and blue. You try "redandblue", but that gets you nowhere. But wait… oh, there's a hint thing, the thing in case you forgot your password. The hint says "dont forget your own fuckiing pa22word iidiiot". Well, that was certainly helpful. You sigh and try "red&blue", but that doesn't work either.

Now you're getting frustrated. You try everything from "bee2" with his stupid quirk to "redbluebee2" to "whatii2myfuckiingpa22word". You're fuming by now and just to spite his computer, try "dontforgetyourownfuckiingpa22wordiidiiot".

And it works.

Damn.

The screen goes to his desktop, and his background picture is… is that a picture of a bunch of 0's and 1's?

… Huh.

Weird.

You open up his files and start dick around. Time to see what he's got on here.

Your name is Sollux Captor once more, and you've forgotten how much you hate school. Thankfully, you have to go on the first day just as reminder of the similarities between high school and hell. Wonderful.

You have to go up to the office to get some packet bullshit, and wow it looks like they decided to put you in some of the classes you like. You can work with that.

For now, your first period is US History. Ugh. You've never liked history, anyway, but now you have it first period, at ass o'clock in the morning. How are you even supposed to concentrate?

You're not, you guess. You sigh and make your way to your first class of the day, then have to take a moment to steel yourself for class. Class had already started, so everybody's going to stare at you like you murdered 5 people. Great.

You open the door and walk in, setting your expression to neutral. The teacher, a woman who you don't know the name of, turns and smiles at you. "Welcome!" she says, and you immediately decide she's too cheery to put up with this early in the morning.

"Hi," you deadpan back, slumping a bit.

"You must be new to this school! Where would you like to sit?" she asks, still grinning. She's kind of freaking you out.

"I don't care," you reply, shrugging, but making sure not to use words with the letter "s" in them. There's no reason to give kids reasons to bully you.

Her smile falters a bit, but she continues, "Well okay then, you can sit right there next to that lovely young lady!" she says, pointing at the lovely young lady in question. You turn and look at the seat, keeping your head down. It's near the back of the class, so the walk seems endless.

When you finally get there, you sigh and set your bag down, then sit down and put your head on your arms.

"Hey," you hear a whisper from your left, and you turn and holy shit you didn't get a good enough look at this lovely young lady earlier because wow. She has long brown hair, bright blue eyes and a smile on her face. Did you mention she's really pretty because your throat is suddenly really dry and you can't remember how to talk to people.

"H- hi," you barely manage to stutter out, and you're definitely blushing now.

"I'm Aradia! What's your name?" she asks, still smiling.

You panic internally because oh god how do you say your name without lisping, you need to act cool in front of her or she won't like you, fuck, what do you do-

"It's Sollux, right? It says on your papers there," she says, pointing to the packet you got from the office.

"Um- yeah, yeah that'th my name." Oh goddamit, you fucked up. You were given a chance to save yourself from lisping or tripping over words, and you just lisped. Fuck.

Luckily, she doesn't seem to notice, but continues on, "Ugh, the teacher just gave us an assignment to do. It's the first day! Really?" she sighs, shaking her head. Then her eyes widen and she asks, "Do you want to be my buddy for this project?"

"I- uh- yeah, sure," you reply, stammering again.

"Okay, here," she says, and steals your phone right out of your pocket. You jump a little, but she's just putting her number in. "Call me or text me to get together to work on the project, okay?" she asks, giving your phone back and smiling.

"Um, yeah, I will," you answer, and you smile a little. School could be a bit easier now.

AP Calculus and Computers fly by and it's lunchtime. Where are you supposed to sit? Should you eat lunch or not? What if you have to sit in the bathroom and eat your lunch alone like in Mean Girls? What if-

You see Aradia waving at you and you head over, sighing in relief. She's sitting with a bunch of other kids you might vaguely recognize from different classes, like the girl with the cane and the red glasses and the terrifying grin is in your computer class, as well as the short angry-looking guy sitting next to her. You sit down next to Aradia and awkwardly mumble, "Hey."

"Hi there! Everybody, this is Sollux," Aradia introduces you to the group, grinning at you.

"Hey," you say to the group, still feeling awkward.

"A new student?" the girl with the red glasses across the table from you leans towards you, her grin mildly terrifying, and you scoot back a little, alarmed. "I'm Terezi!" she then says, still grinning, and adds, "Yes, I'm blind!", answering a question you never asked.

"Hi?" you say, more than a little creeped out.

"Karkat," the short grumpy guy mutters, and your eyes widen in shock.

"KK?" you say, saying the nickname you had given your online friend.

"What the fuck? Sollux?" he asks, incredulous.

You laugh and say, "Holy shit dude, I never thought I'd get to meet you! Damn, thith ith weird." Shit, you fucked up again. Shit. You fucked up.

On the bright side, nobody seems to take notice, so that's good.

"Man, that's weird. What are the chances of you coming to the school I go to? Damn," he says, looking surprised.

"That'th definitely weird," you reply, not really caring about your lisp anymore. Meeting your online friend is really weird, but he's about what you pictured when talking to him. Short and angry most of the time.

The others introduce themselves as Tavros (the boy in the wheelchair), Nepeta (the one with the cat-hat?), Kanaya (the one who talks way too proper for you), Equius (the huge muscly guy- like damn, how many muscles can you have), and Gamzee (the one who's "best motherfuckin' bros" with KK and looks high- which, you find out later, he is).

The rest of the day goes smoothly. AP English flies by, and you find that KK is in your PE class. AP Physics is last, which Aradia turns out to be in as well. You think you're really getting along with her.

When school is finally over, you find your beaten-up truck in the parking lot and wait for 'Tuna. You two always drive home together.

You get home, sigh, and go straight upstairs. You just get to wait for your father to get home.

But the second you walk into your room, you yelp in surprise. There's a pair of hands floating in front of your laptop and CREEPING THROUGH YOUR FILES, fuck. There's only one explanation.

Eridan.


	7. A Completely Different Chapter

7. A Completely Different Chapter, But School Still Sucks

Your name is Mituna Captor and it is now the beginning of the school day on the first day of school for you. Sollux had just parked in the parking lot, and you both have to get some packets from the office before parting ways.

With Computers first, you grin and make your way to the classroom. Computers and anything electronic have always been your forte, Sollux's too. It makes you glad that you have such an easy class so early in the morning. You walk into the classroom, hoping to see Sollux in there- which is stupid, considering he went the opposite way of where you were going when he got his packet- but he isn't, so you turn to the teacher instead.

The teacher is extremely short and looks bored all the time and, you learn, speaks in a monotone.

"Welcome to this school and this class. You can take a seat right next to Ms. Pyrope over there," he says, oh and there's the monotone. You turn to see someone with red glasses and long black hair waving excitedly at you, sitting next to another girl who looks just like her but with shorter hair, different glasses and a cane?

You wave back and go to sit down, putting your backpack down and turning to face Ms. Pyrope. "Hi there," you say, grinning.

"Hey there! I'm Latula, and this is my lil sis, Terezi," she says, smiling back and gesturing to the girl sitting next to her.

"Hello, stranger," Terezi says, not turning to look at you but grinning at her monitor.

"I'm Mituna," you reply, smiling before turning to your computer and getting started on work. Latula turns to hers as well and starts typing quickly.

The rest of class passes by slowly, Latula occasionally turning to speak to you or Terezi. You learn she loves giving high-fives and skateboarding, and you love skateboarding too so you get along well.

By the end of class she's declared you "radical" enough and gives you her number on a skateboard sticky note, which you put in your backpack with a vivid blush.

Next is AP Chemistry, but you don't see Sollux in this class either, which disappoints you. You hope he's in at least one of your classes, but when you go to AP English, he's not in there either. But Latula is, and you sit next to her. She introduces you to Kankri, who wears a bright red sweater and talks way too much for you to take in.

The teacher cuts Kankri off mid-sentence when she starts talking and he glares at her, and to your surprise, the teacher glares right back at him. She must be used to dealing with him.

The way she talks makes you think she's irritated and stressed all the time- which must be pretty accurate for most teachers, you realize. Wow.

That class stays quiet until one person speaks a bit too loudly while the teacher is talking, and the teacher goes off on them, yelling at them how important it is to stay quiet in class, which is ironic enough. Nonetheless, the rest of the class learns to stay quiet while the teacher is talking.

After that class, it's lunch time. You grab your lunch and look around for Sollux, but you see him sitting with a bunch of new friends, including Latula's sister, so you decide to wander around until you find Latula or somebody.

You do find her, sitting with Kankri and a bunch of people you don't recognize. You bite your lip and make your way over, then ask, "Hey Tula, can I thit with you?" You don't really care about your lisp, Sollux is the one that cares more about that.

"Sure!" she replies, grinning, scooting over and patting the space beside her. You sit down and wave to everybody else.

"Hey," you say, smiling.

You meet each of them one-by-one. There's Damara (who has an accent you can't quite place), Rufioh (who says "bangarang" too much for you to handle), Meulin (who's deaf and has to yell everything at you, but can still read lips), Porrim (who you decide is cool because she has so many tattoos), Aranea (who's reading a book when she says hi to you), Horuss (who kind of freaks you out), Kurloz (who's mute by choice, and apparently with deaf girl), and Meenah (who you can't even handle with all her fish puns).

Then you recognize Aranea and say, "Hey, I know you! You're the librarian at the local library, right?" On the day you and Sollux went to the library, while he had been dicking around on the computer, you had talked to Aranea for a bit.

"Yes I am," she replies, smiling softly. "You're the one who came in with your twin brother, yes?"

"Yeah, that wath me!"

Then you two get caught up with different people's conversations, and the rest of lunch passes mostly with mild flirting between you and Tula. When lunch ends you groan, but go to class anyway.

AP US history.

Ugh.

You bear through it anyway, just to get to PE.

There's Sollux!

FINALLY.

But he's in a different class, so you sigh and go with your own class. You're upset he's not in any of your classes, but hopefully you'll have more of your new friends in your classes. You spot the tall curly-haired guy- Carlos?- in your class, and you wave at him. He waves back, half-smiling, and then your coach starts taking roll so you pay attention to him instead.

Your PE teacher kind of scares you, so you listen to him attentively instead of slacking off.

Your next class, Finite Math, has you grinning as you see Aranea in there, and you sit down next to her. You two talk for a bit, just about random things, before the teacher walks in and you two quiet down.

After the teacher finishes teaching and gives out the homework, Aranea turns to you with a small smile. "So you and Latula are dating?"

You flush and start spluttering, "W- what, no, we only jutht met today, I-I don't even know if she liketh me or not, oh my god-"

"Calm down, I'm just teasing," she says with a grin, then continues, "Besides, you don't know if she likes you or not."

"I gueth tho," you mumble, shrugging and turning to your homework, and Aranea drops it, thankfully.

After school, Sollux drives you two home and goes straight upstairs. Well, fine then, it's not like you wanted to spend quality time with your twin anyway. You go into the kitchen and sigh to yourself. You need to grab a snack, then get started on your homework.

Your name is now Simon Captor, and you are the father of a young set of boys. You moved them both to California, and while you were happy with the move, neither of them were. But the mansion was cheap, and right near where your new job was, so they just have to deal.

Right now you're at your new job, a tech company that invents new technology. It's a well-paying job for something you love to do, so you gladly took the job, no matter if your sons disapprove.

You like the house so far, actually, and your new job too. You were enjoying taking apart and putting electronics together when you were notified it was time to take your lunch break, so here you are at home, poking around in the cupboards. There's not much to eat, but that's just because you haven't gone on an actual grocery shopping trip yet, so you need to do that, but not now. Maybe tomorrow.

Then you hear angry voices from the dining room, and you freeze. Burglars? Fuck. You grab a knife and sneak over to the door that connects the kitchen and the dining room. Now that you can hear the voices better, it sounds like… a father lecturing his son? Huh. That's… weird.

You peek around the corner, just to see what's going on, and you first see two young men on either side of a handsome man around your age who's sitting in your seat but they're all transparent, fuck, ghosts?

You back up into the kitchen and put the knife down, shaking. It's not like the knife's going to do any good against ghosts, anyway. So there are ghosts in your house.

No wonder it was so cheap.

You calm down enough to go up to your room, sit down on your bed and put your head in your hands. What are you going to do? Will you tell Sollux and Mituna?

Who are you kidding, they probably already know, the sneaky bastards. It'd be just like them to keep something like this from you.

You're not really sure if the ghosts are such a bad thing. The youngest one looked to be about the twins' ages, while the other son looked to be about a year or two older.

Then their father…

Damn.

You have to admit, even when he's angry at his sons for doing god knows what, he is pretty handsome. Slicked back black hair, a good, strong build, even the two scars that cross his face from above his left eye to his right cheek make him look good. You might actually go so far as to say you don't mind this ghost being in your house.

What are you thinking? He's a ghost, of course you would care if he was in your house!

You mentally argue with yourself for a while over whether or not you really want him in your house when, suddenly, the very ghost you're thinking about appears just a couple feet in front of you.

You'd like to say that you were completely calm and cool, but you, in reality, shrieked like a little girl and jumped back at least 10 feet.

He looks just as startled as you are and, just as quickly as he had appeared, disappears.

Against your will, you call out, "Wait, come back! Sorry, I didn't mean to… scare you. If I can, anyway, I mean… you're a ghost." You laugh nervously, running a hand through your hair. You could've scared him off, but you want to talk to him.

There's a moment of silence, and then you sigh and get up. So he's not reappearing? Fine then. You should eat something then get back to work, anyway.

Then he reappears again, and you're proud to say that this time you just jumped a little.

"How can I help you?" this ghost asks stiffly, crossing his arms and looking down his nose at you.

"Um. Uh," you stumble. You're not the most coherent when faced with a really good-looking ghost. "I, uh. What- What's your name?"

"Orpheus Ampora. And yours?" he asks, narrowing his eyes.

"Simon. Simon Captor," you say, stepping back a bit. He's kind of freaking you out now.

"Hmph. Well, I guess I should explain some things. I used to live in this house with my two sons, before we ended up as ghosts. My sons have been bothering yours, you should know; I told them not to, but they did anyway. You know teenagers. We won't leave, and you can't force us, simply because it's impossible. Others have tried, and all have failed, so don't bother," he says as if he's said it a lot before.

You raise an eyebrow and reply, "Why would I do that?"

"Because we're ghosts," he says, eyeing you suspiciously.

"But you haven't done anything to bother us so far. I don't see why we can't live together," you shrug.

He looks shocked, and it's several seconds before he manages to say, "Well, that's… good, then. I'll leave now, I have things to deal with."

You turn to the clock and oh shit, it's past your lunch hour. "I have to go as well, my lunch break just ended."

"Yes, of course. It… it was nice meeting you," he says, and you can see a hint of discomfort in his face? That's weird.

"It was nice meeting you too! Bye," you say, smiling at him, then run downstairs to grab a quick snack before getting in your car and driving off to work. It's a great idea to be late after a lunch break on the first day, but that was all Mister Orpheus Handsome Ampora's fault.

It's not your fault he's really hot.


	8. Why Douchebags Shouldn't Be Allowed

8. Why Douchebags Shouldn't Be Allowed On Laptops

Your name is Sollux Captor and you are pretty fucking furious. You have walked in on, of all people (or ghosts), fucking ERIDAN on your LAPTOP. You don't like anyone messing around on your laptop, first of all, but the fact that he did it while you weren't home, while he KNEW you weren't home, and without your permission?

You stomp over to your laptop and literally wrench his hands away from your laptop, resulting in a pained yelp and him fully appearing. He looks scared. Good. He should be.

"What. The. FUCK. Were you doing on my laptop?" you ask in a low voice, holding his wrists captive as you glare at him.

"I wwasn't doin' anythin', Sol- OW!" he yelps again as you twist his wrists.

"I repeat. What were you doing on my laptop?" you hiss, but untwist his wrists.

"I wwas just lookin' through some files, okay?! But I didn't mess wwith anythin', I swwear!" he whines, trying to tug his wrists out of your grip to no avail. It's like he's forgotten he can just disappear. That's pretty dumb.

"And you didn't fuck anything up, right?" you tighten your grip on his wrists just barely, and he groans in pain.

"Yes, yes! I didn't fuck anythin' up, all right?" He's still trying to tug his wrists out of your grip.

"Good," you snap and let go of him.

He jumps away from you, then goes over to the bed, scowling and rubbing his wrists. "You could'vve just asked nicely, you knoww," he grumbles, looking down.

You sit down in your chair and start closing any windows he opened. "You could've jutht dithappeared again, you know," you reply as condescendingly as you can, scowling at your screen.

He flushes in embarrassment, and you sigh. "Thorry for hurting you," you mumble, not making eye contact.

"Hurtin' me? Sol, I'm a ghost. I can't feel pain," he says as he sort of smiles, and it's your turn to flush in embarrassment. Of course he can't feel pain, why did you try and hurt him to get answers? Well, you were angry, but still…

You sigh and say, "Thtill, I'm thorry."

"It's fine," he mumbles back, and you two settle into a comfortable silence for a while as you get to work on some programs.

Eridan nearly scares the shit out of you when he sneaks up behind you unintentionally and asks, "Wwhat are you doin'?"

You yelp, but manage to recover your breathing a minute later and say, "Coding."

"Wwhat's that?"

"It'th… putting together different componenth… it'th… how do I explain it…? It'th like creating programth that do different thingth for your computer."

"Is that wwhat all those zeroes an' ones on your background are?"

"Yup."

After that, he goes back to your bed and leaves you alone in another comfortable silence.

It startles both of you when your phone goes off in your pocket, and you pull it out. You don't recognize the number, but you answer it anyway, "Hello?"

"Is this Sollux?"

"Aradia? Ith that you?" You lean back in your computer chair, raising an eyebrow. Eridan is giving you a weird look, but you ignore him.

"Sollux! I'm so glad I caught you. Hey, are you busy right now?"

"Um- I, uh, no. Why?"

"I was wondering if I could come over so we can work on our project! I would offer for you to come over instead, but my mom's at work and probably wouldn't want some boy I just met to come over today."

"Yeah, it'th fine. I live in the mansion near the edge of town. Do you know the one?" you ask, and there's silence from the line.

Then she says a bit less confidently, "Um… yeah! Yeah, I'll be right over!"

Click.

She hung up.

You put your phone back down, and immediately Eridan asks you, "Wwho wwas that?"

"A girl I met at thchool today."

"Is she comin' ovver?"

"Yeth."

"Wwhy?"

"We're working on a project, okay? I don't know when she'll be over, but when she ith, you're going to need to go away. You know that, right?"

"Fine," he snaps, then disappears.

"Wait, I didn't mean right now! … Fuck, whatever," you grumble, and busy yourself with coding until Aradia gets here.

Half an hour later, you hear the doorbell and you rush downstairs to get it. When you open the door, there's Aradia standing there, and wow she still looks really pretty. You attempt to smile and mumble, "Hello," before waving her in.

She greets you and steps inside the house, immediately looking up at the ceiling. "It's so big in here!" she exclaims, grinning.

"Heh, yeah," you say, awkwardly scratching the back of your head.

"So where do you want to work?" she asks then, turning to you.

"Um, I don't really care. My room'th fine, I gueth," you casually shrug, and you totally pulled it off correctly, shut up.

"Okay then!" she says cheerily, and you both start walking towards the stairs when your brother appears from the kitchen, munching on string cheese.

He sees you and Aradia and grins, asking, "You don't even introduthe me and you're already bringing her upthtairth? Clathy, Thollux."

You flush a deep red and glare at him, but ignore him.

Aradia looks confused and asks, "Why is there a copy of you standing over there?"

"That'th my twin brother, Mituna. He'th an athhole. Now come on," you grumble and start walking upstairs.

"Nithe to meet you, Thollux'th 'friend'!" You can hear the quotations on the word "friend", goddammit.

When you and Aradia get to your room, you close the door and sit down on the floor with her. "Tho, what ith thith project anyway?"

"We get to research the Cold War, and we have to do a presentation and everything. Sounds fun, right?" she says as she attempts a smile, but really looks 200% done with history class already.

"Ew," you mumble, getting up to grab your laptop before sitting back down. "Tho what thpethifically do we need to rethearch?"

As you two start talking about the project, you notice Eridan sitting on your bed, behind Aradia so she can't see him. He's looking over her shoulder, scowling down on the papers you two have written on. Maybe you or she wrote something down that was wrong? Oh whatever, he can deal with it.

Your name is Eridan Ampora and you're pretty pissed. You admit it was your fault for getting on his laptop without permission, but then he has the audacity to invite some chick over when you were having a moment. Also, he specifically said you needed to not be there while she was.

He didn't hurt you when he gripped your wrists, but he did hurt you when you had to point out that because you were dead he couldn't hurt you.

Nonetheless, right now you're staring down at their papers. They have some project to do, you don't know. But it looks like they're researching the Cold War.

You're a bit of a history geek if you say so yourself. No, you're definitely a history geek. You used to love history, acing all your history classes and reading history books in your free time. All of your friends- few as they were- knew you were the go-to person for help on history homework. You know, before you died.

You sigh as quietly as you can- I mean there's a human who doesn't know about you inches away from you- and settle back. You see Sollux glaring at you- what did you do this time? Damn.

You move to lie down on the bed and glare back at Sollux, who rolls his eyes at you and returns to conversing with Aradia.

Ugh. Aradia. You wish she weren't here. She seems like a nice person, it's just… you and Sollux were actually getting along for once, and then she came over. You're not jealous! You're not. You just wish you and Sollux could have some genuine non-romantic bro time.

Yeah, you're not jealous at all.

Your name is once again Sollux Captor, and you are currently working on a project with Aradia while trying to ignore Eridan, who looks upset for who knows what reasons. But you've been paying attention to Aradia as well, and you can see her getting increasingly uncomfortable? She keeps looking around her, and frowning a bit. You haven't moved from your spot… maybe she senses Eridan right behind her?

You chew on your lip, then ask, "Hey, what'th up? You look… um… uncomfortable."

She jumps, obviously not expecting you to notice, then looks down and mumbles, "Well, this house… No, never mind, it's stupid."

But your curiosity has been piqued. "What ith it?"

She sighs, then looks up at you nervously. "Well, there have been… rumors. Rumors about this house, the old Ampora mansion."

"What rumorth are thothe?" Shit, is this why Aranea told you not to ask about it? You can see Eridan's paying attention now though, sitting up and looking at the back of her head.

"Well, the old owners… you know, Dualscar and his two sons… were really rich. Like, super rich. Filthy rich. When the younger son, Eridan, was a junior and the older son, Cronus, was a senior, they vanished. Completely."

"What the fuck…?" you mumble, staring wide-eyed at her.

"It's a local tale that I've heard- it happened quite a few years ago, maybe about 20 years ago. They had to destroy all records of it for it not to get out, of course… I mean, Dualscar was a very important businessman, so a lot of people knew of him, which is why they had to cover the disappearance up. Only the locals know about it… I heard it from my mom. But since you just moved here, it makes sense that you don't know."

"What… what are thome of the rumorth?" you ask, a little bit scared but curious enough.

"Well… there are some that the Amporas just completely moved out and went to a different town without saying good-bye. There are others that they were wanted by the FBI and had to move to a different country. But the most popular one is that they were murdered," she says, her voice hushed.

"Murdered?" Shit, that would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

"Yeah. Of course, then there are different rumors for what they did with the bodies. Cut up and thrown in a well, buried in the cellar, burned and put in the archives of the Town Hall…"

"Damn. That'th thome… methed up shit. But nobody really knowth what happened, do they?"

"No, not really. Nobody talks about it, of course, because it was a bad time in history," she says, looking at you without a smile for once.

"That might explain why the librarian wouldn't talk when I athked her about it… I went to do rethearch at the library, but I couldn't find anything on the computer or paper files. When I athked the librarian, she warned me not to ask anyone about it," you say, looking down and frowning.

"Like I said, nobody talks about it. Anyone who does… well, we don't hear from them ever again. I'll put it that way," she says, and now you're legitimately scared.

"But… we're talking about it," you point out, raising an eyebrow.

"It's not like they have eyes and ears everywhere! Come on Sollux, do you really think they'll know if we're talking about it inside the mansion itself?" she laughs, and you both drop it to return to your project, but you can't stop thinking about it.

Your life just got a lot more interesting.

Your name is once again Eridan Ampora, and for you, death just got a lot more complicated.


	9. All The Assholes Know Each Other Now

9. All the Assholes Know Each Other Now

Your name is Cronus Ampora, and wow it's been a long time since you've been… you. Yeah.

You're currently at the table with your father and your brother and the two Captor twins, who had explained what Aradia said about the Ampora incident. Aradia had already left with a promise that she'd be back tomorrow to work more on the project.

You don't know how you can take what the younger Captor told you. He said his "lady friend" (he's totally into her, but he insists they're just friends) told him what happened. You don't know how to take it. You were fine with accepting you were dead and getting over it, but now this? You just… ugh.

Introductions between the 5 of you came rather easy, once your dad got over the fact that the Captors knew about you guys and didn't want to move out, unlike the last people that tried to move in.

Funny story: They arrived at the house, unpacked everything, and walked in on Orpheus yelling at you two for going into town and harassing people. Needless to say, it was only an hour before they had re-packed their things and went away.

Another funny story: Unlike what most people think, ghosts can, in fact, move around and away from the place they died. Which is why you and Eridan had gone out to town, partly to explore what had changed since you had died, a little because your father forced you out because there were people moving in, but mostly to terrorize. Needless to say, your father wasn't very happy with you, and that's the not so funny part of the story.

Back to the present: your father is currently processing the information given to him by this scrawny nerd (it's what you call him, because that's what he is), judging by the look on his face. His face is all scrunched up, making his nose scrunched up, making his scars scrunched up.

"Well, I guess that's that. And you say no one will talk about it?" your father asks after a while, eyeing Sollux.

"Nope. I went to the library to rethearch thith whole thing, and the librarian, Aranea, gave me a lecture on not telling anyone," the scrawny nerd replies.

"Aranea?" Eridan perks up, and oh no. Shit, that's that one chick, huh? The chick that- oh. Oh.

"So you couldn't find anythin' at the library, huh?" you quickly cut him off, and he looks mildly hurt.

"Not a thing. Tuna and I thearched for hourth, though. I gueth I could try the thchool library, but I doubt they have anything either. AA did thay that they dethtroyed any recordth about it, though, tho I don't think we can find anything there, or anywhere. But I'm sure thomeone in the town knowth what happened, okay? And I will find out, I promithe you that," he says, a determined look in his eyes.

"That's a big thing you're promisin'," Eridan notes, raising his eyebrows.

"I think it'th pothible, if I get help from people, like Tuna, and Dad," Sollux replies, slapping the hand Mituna was offering him for a high-five.

"Speaking of your father," Orpheus interrupts, looking at Sollux and Mituna, "I met him today. He was back for his lunch break, I believe, and I walked into his room- well, I appeared in his room- and he was sitting there. He saw me before I could vanish, and so we talked a bit and then he left for work."

Talked a bit, huh? You smirk at him, and he deftly avoids eye contact with you as you raise your eyebrows suggestively.

"He'll be back in an hour or tho… I gueth we can disthcuth it with him then," Sollux points out.

"That's fine," Orpheus replies, then gets up and leaves the room. Everyone else follows suit, going in different directions. Now there's time to kill, waiting for the eldest Captor to get home from work.

You decide to follow Mituna, just because he's staying in what was your room but now is his. You walk into his room to find him on his bed, on his phone and texting rapidly. You sit down at the end of his bed and drawl, "Vwhat's up, chief?"

"Nope," he says flatly, still texting.

You frown and mumble, "You ain't gonna evwen givwe me a chance, chief?"

"Nope."

You groan and lean back, then poke his leg with your foot. He looks over just to scowl at you, then goes back to texting. Success.

You keep poking his leg with your foot until he moves his legs and snaps, "Quit it."

"I'm boooored," you whine, moving over just to nudge his leg again.

"And I'm buthy. Go bother thomeone elthe," he mutters, then goes back to texting someone quickly.

"So. Who are ya textin'?" you ask, smirking at him.

"How do you know what texting ith?" he counters, raising an eyebrow at you.

"Oh c'mon, I'm not THAT outta date. I'vwe been around the towvn a bit, I knowv vwhat textin' is. Nowv, who are ya textin'?"

"… A perthon I met at thchool today."

"Oooh, is it a girl?" you say as you wiggle your eyebrows at him, still smirking.

"Why do you automatically athume that it'th a girl? C'mon, man," and then he's smirking at you now.

"'Ey man, I don't judge, you can like whoevwer you vwant," you shrug. You personally have a preference for anyone who's hot (maybe including the very person you're sitting on a bed with), so it doesn't matter who he likes.

"Good. … It ith a girl," he admits after a few moments.

You smirk and reply, "Called it."

"Oh, shut up. Hey, you said you've been around the town a bit, right?" He's trying to change the subject, but you go with it anyway, rolling your eyes.

"Yeah, vwhat about it?"

"I didn't know ghothth could leave the plathe of their death…"

"Neither did Eri or I, until vwe decided to go havwe a look around, see vwhat's changed. Until vwe had gone to towvn, vwe hadn't had any contact vwith anybody for years, except for people who havwe tried to movwe in…" As you speak, you look up, lost in thought, then trail off.

"What other people have tried moving in?" Mituna asks, and he's put his phone down. Ah yes, this is what you wanted, a conversation with him without him being on his phone and ignoring you. Well, you mean you would've liked a conversation with whoever was around, not just Mituna… okay yeah, maybe just Mituna.

And now he's been staring at you increasingly weirdly as you sit there in thought, shit. You quickly say, "Um, a couple a families, I guess. There vwas one that tried movwin' in soon after vwe died… and then there vwas another one that had actually heard the rumors but vwanted to be bravwe or some shit like that. Then there vwas one that vwalked in on Dad yellin' at Eri an' me… god, that vwas a good story. But yeah, then you guys movwed in."

As you've been talking, he's been getting increasingly closer by the second, shifting forward on the bed, and now he's right in front of you. He seems to realize this and scoots back a bit, but keeps looking at you. "Are we the firtht family that didn't move away becauthe of you guyth?"

"Yeah, pretty much. The first an' second families vwe chased out 'cause they vwere fuckin' annoyin'… I think Eri vwas sad to see 'em go, though," you say thoughtfully. You remember Eridan had been distraught for some reason over them leaving, but you were fine.

"Why?"

"Hell if I know, kid."

"I'm not a kid!" he scowls at you, and you roll your eyes, replying, "I didn't mean it like that, I meant it in a friendly term."

He looks surprised, then mumbles, "Doeth that mean we're friendth now?"

It's your turn to look surprised as you reply, "Yeah, I thought that vwas implied, chief."

He looks thoughtful, then shrugs and nods. Then he says, "Tho we can explore the town after Dad getth home, right?"

"Depends on the time he gets home, I guess," you reply, frowning slightly.

"About five, or around that time. That'll give uth enough time to explore."

"Vwe can take Eri an' your brother, as vwell. Vwe can show you around a bit, an' let you meet people. Although vwe'll be invwisible, you can still hear us. Vwe can vwhisper or somethin'."

"That'th a good idea. Let'th wait 'til Dad getth home, though, jutht in cathe he thayth we can't at thith hour," he replies, moving back to his original spot on the bed. You feel a brief twinge of disappointment as he moves, then crush that feeling, a bit confused- you'll deal with it later.

"Yeah, vwe'll vwait," you sigh, looking at the clock. It's only 4:30 now, having wasted time after the twins went to school with whatever project Sollux was working on, and then talking about what his (girl)friend said. Still a half-hour to go. You groan and stretch out on the bed, closing your eyes and trying to remember what it was like to dream.


	10. Makin' My Wway Dowwntowwn Wwalkin' Fatht

Edit: Wow, thank you everyone who reviewed this story and followed it and favorited it and whatever else! To the anon that asked if this is Erisol or Solkat, this is Erisol, sorry I couldn't make that clear or reply to your message because is dumb and won't let me reply to anons D: But thank you all, and enjoy this chapter! It's the longest yet, so I might make the 20th chapter an extra long one, just for symmetry's sake. If I get to a chapter 20. Thank you all! C:

10. Makin' My Wway Dowwntowwn, Wwalkin' Fatht

Your name is Eridan Ampora and you are so done with everyone and everything. Before Sollux's father came home, Cronus had dropped by a while ago to inform you and Sollux that you were going out to explore the town, which was great, just what you wanted. To float around town for hours with a couple of assholes and try to talk to them without people who are walking by noticing, with the added bonus of possibly seeing old rivals? Sounds great.

On the other hand, it is a prime opportunity to hang out with a prime piece of ass you've been secretly checking out for the past 15 minutes. Okay, maybe it's not so secret, you have nothing else to do and Sollux is a nice bit of eye candy. He's typing away on his laptop, but from the place you're sitting, against the wall on his left, near the door to the bathroom, you can see his profile. The way his eyebrows raise in surprise and lower into a frown, the way his glasses slowly slide down on his angled nose so his (nice long) fingers have to push them back up, the way his lips curl downwards into a frown. Especially the way his lips curl downwards into a frown.

It's only been 15 minutes and you're still bored. Time is crawling by, and you sigh loudly, slumping against the wall and hoping he gets the hint. He ignores you. What a dick. You're obviously suffering here, and he just leaves you to fend for yourself?

You hoist yourself up and sit next to his laptop on his desk, whining and slumping forward. He glares at you for a brief second, then turns back to his laptop. You groan and drape yourself across his laptop, probably pressing a few keys on it but not really giving a fuck.

"For fuck'th thake ED, I'm trying to work. Get off my fucking computer or I will thmack you," he growls, trying to shove at you, and wow what do you know, he can actually touch you when you're in solid form. You smirk at that but file that thought away for another time.

"I'm boooored, Sol. An' since I wwas technically livvin' here first, so you havve to entertain me," you answer snobbily, crossing your arms.

"Newthflash: I don't give a fuck. Now get off," he growls, still trying to push you off.

All you do is turn your face towards him, smirk, and wiggle your eyebrows, and he really does smack you on the stomach this time, scowling at you.

"Look, I'm buthy and you're in my way, so get the fuck off or I will make you," he hisses at you, now trying to pull you off, but still to no success.

"Sol, I knoww I'm hot an' you wwant me, but you're comin' on a lil' strong," you smirk at him, crossing your arms and lying on your back on top of his laptop and wow he's picking you up now, bridal style. You fake swoon, calling out his name in a falsetto, and get promptly dumped on the floor before he goes back to his laptop.

Well fine then, you guess it's going to be the hard way.

You tug at the column of his super fancy spinny chair, trying to tug him away from the computer, but he digs his feet into the floor. No success.

Next you drape your arms around his neck from behind, smirking as a blush creeps up his neck while you whisper his name in his ear and owowow he just punched you in the face, sending you backwards and onto your ass. Ugh.

Luckily for you, all this time you had spent bugging him and trying to get him to notice you had been enough time for Simon Captor to get home. As the door downstairs opened and closed, you bolted out of Sollux's bedroom and downstairs. It took Sollux longer because of his puny mortal legs, but eventually everyone meets up in the dining hall.

It shocked Simon enough that everybody knew each other that he had to sit down, putting his bag down as he stared suspiciously at you and Cronus. But Sollux and Mituna quickly explained the situation, albeit slowly because Sollux was distracted, mostly by you repeatedly kicking his legs under the table as he was across from you.

Simon actually took the information about the ghosts and the rumors pretty well, you thought, because if he had thrown a hissy fit about it, although he doesn't seem the type to do that. However, when Mituna asks him if they can explore the town a bit, he says no.

"But why noooot?" Mituna's whining, sagging against his father.

"It's too late to do that; you still need to eat dinner, and I'm sure you two both have homework that you didn't do because you were busy messing around with the Amporas," he says, rolling his eyes.

You can't help but think, well no not messing around with them _yet, _but you don't say it aloud because either Simon or your father (or probably both) would punch your face in, and you like your face exactly the way it is, thank you.

With your internal monologue you nearly miss Mituna whining a bit more at his father, and then Simon finally relents, "How about this weekend you can go explore town, okay? I'll give you some money and you can get lunch or snacks or video games or something."

"But Daaaad, it'th only Mondayyyy!" Mituna keeps whining, rolling his heterochromatic eyes at his father.

"You can wait. Now go do your homework while I make dinner," Simon says, then gets up and goes to the kitchen. Mituna groans loudly and dramatically leaves the room, Sollux sighing and going after him.

Looks like it's going to be a long week of being bored to death at home with your father and brother.

Your name is still Eridan Ampora- no POV switches for you. It is finally Saturday, but it's not like you're excited to go out with your brother and the twins. Nope. Okay, maybe just a little.

Nonetheless, you're a bit angry at Sollux anyway. With all the time he's been spending with Aradia, "working on their project" (but really most of the time they were just talking and laughing together), he's had almost no time for you. Whenever he wasn't with Aradia he was on his laptop, typing away on Pesterchum to one of his fifty million friends. You get lonely, dammit! You want attention and he doesn't pay attention to you. Fuckin' ridiculous.

Nonetheless, now that it's Saturday, you're being dragged into town. Not to do anything really special, just to walk around and explore. It sounds boring, as you and Cronus have been around the city many times, but you're going anyway.

Of course, being disturbed at 7 o'clock in the morning was not so fun. You were sitting against the wall as usual, totally not creepily watching him as he sleeps, admiring the curve of his chest rising up and down as he breathes slowly, watching his face muscles twitch either in a frown, or in a rare smile. Anyway, you were sitting there when Mituna bursts in, yelling about going out to town and shaking his twin.

Sollux groans and waves his hand in the general direction of Mituna's voice, trying to smack him but failing miserably as Mituna dodges him.

"Come on Thollux, get uuuup," Mituna groans, pulling Sollux's arm and trying to get him out of his bed.

"I thwear to god Tuna, it'th… it'th fucking theven o'clock in the morning. I'm going to kill you," Sollux growls, then throws off his covers to shove his brother off the bed, then pinning him down on the floor. Mituna fakes struggling, laughing as Sollux growls and sits on his stomach, effectively crushing him. Mituna groans and collapses, putting a hand up to his forehead and moaning, "Oh no, here cometh my death at the handth of my own brother, my grim demithe!"

You groan and finally get up, bodily tearing Sol of off Mituna- you know you're much stronger than your thin build suggests, but the way Sol flails is totally worth it.

"C'mon you twwo, knock it the fuck off. Sol, get dressed, wwe're goin' out. Mituna, go bug Cro or someone," you say, and shoo Mituna out before leaving the room yourself so Sol can get dressed in peace.

You arrive downstairs to see Cronus sitting in the dining hall, his feet up on the table. You growl and smack his feet off the table, then sit down across from him. "Havve some fuckin' manners, Cro."

"It's better to relax an' chill out than to havwe some 'fuckin' manners'," Cronus replies, rolling his eyes and putting his feet back up on the table. You two gripe and grumble for a bit before Sollux and Mituna arrive downstairs, one of them grinning and the other grumbling, but eventually you four make it out the door with lots of good-byes to your respective dads and money given and to be home by dinner and lots of rule reminders and etc.

You and Cro do have to blend in, so you both disappear, but reassure Sollux and Mituna that they can still talk to you.

It's a bit of a walk to town, but not much considering the Ampora Mansion is a ways away from town, but close enough to be accessible. When you all finally arrive in town, Mituna sets off in a random direction down the main street, where you know lots of shops and restaurants reside. Though it's been a while since you were out here last, so there are a few new shops.

Mituna starts tugging Sollux towards a candy shop, but Sollux reminds him that they haven't even had breakfast yet. Right on cue, Mituna's stomach growls, and Cronus starts laughing, the asshole. You smack him for being loud, even though there aren't any people nearby.

Sollux brings Mituna to a small café, with outside space for dining and inside space as well. You and Cronus follow them in as the twins go up, getting a table for two. You groan as you realize that you'll probably end up sitting on either the floor or the table (or possibly Sollux's lap, heh), but the waitress leads them to a booth and you sigh, sitting next to Sollux as he sits opposite Mituna, Cronus sitting next to him.

You groan and whine as they take fuckin' forever to order, finally Mituna gets some waffles and Sollux gets some pancakes. Then you wrinkle your nose in disgust as he drowns them in honey, basically upending the bottle. You don't fail to tell him so, "The amount a' honey you put on those pancakes is fuckin' disgustin'."

"And it'th none of your buthineth," he mumbles back before shoving a honey-drenched pancake into his mouth. You shudder in disgust.

One very disgusting and boring breakfast later, Sollux pays and then drags Mituna out of the restaurant. You and Cronus follow as you all stroll slowly through the town, eyeing the different shops and occasionally going in some. When you end up in the hair care section of the reasonably-sized grocery store, it takes threats of leaving you there and then Cronus actually dragging you away to lead you away from the section.

It's a beautiful day outside, which is a rarity in Oregon, so it's nice. The sun is shining down, so when you four stop at another little restaurant for lunch, you decide to sit outside. They end up getting a table for two, so after Sollux attempts to smack you (it goes straight through your mid-section) because you asked if you could sit on his lap, you take that as a no and sit on the ground, Cronus next to you. You would sit on the fence that encases the outside seating area, which is right next to Sollux and Mituna's table, but you'd probably just float through. Maybe you could float through the ground if you tried hard enough.

Or maybe if you sat on Sollux's lap you'd float through that.

Heh.

Nonetheless, you watch from the ground as the twins eat their sandwiches, and you mumble to Cronus how fuckin' unfair it is that you have to sit on the ground while their living asses get to be on the fancy chairs. He replies that yes, they are very fancy, but not as fancy as Mituna. You roll your eyes and smack him; that was pretty bad. Really bad.

When they're finished with lunch, they wander around the small town, not just the main street. There are a lots of houses, plus one hotel you doubt ever gets used. It's a cute little town, you'll admit, and the twins soon admit. There are children playing outside, most of whom you avoid because children.

Then you pass the Town Hall.

Ugh.

The mayor of the town was Mayor English last you checked, and it seems to still be. Mayor English basically ruled over the town, and everybody loved him, but he never spoke to anyone directly, except for his most trusted servants, Connie Peixes and Jack Noir. He gives public speeches sometimes, but other than that, doesn't talk to anybody outside the Town Hall.

You whisper to Sollux and ask if Mayor English is still the mayor, and he mumbles back that he doesn't fucking know, he just moved here. You whine and moan at him until he groans and goes over the Town Hall, reading some of the posters up and yep, Mayor English is definitely still the Mayor. Ugh.

You never liked him much. He was an asshole, to simply put it. From what you heard from him, anyway. But that was years ago and you'd think that you'd be over it, but nah.

Nonetheless, you all continue on to wander around some of the super fancy houses around that neighborhood, admiring the old style of house, but none of them come near to the size of your- dammit, not again- the Captors' mansion. It's by far the biggest house in the town.

As you pass a bright pink-colored house- you could say it's a fuchsia-, you turn to look at it a bit more closely.

You remember… the first people that tried to move in, they were two sisters who didn't get along very well. One of them was obsessed with power and money while the other was always nice and kind, smiling and giving to those a bit less fortunate in the town. You definitely liked the more bubbly one, and you were happy for _her _to stay. But… your father didn't like them, and you three ended up chasing them both out, but not before you had developed a bond with the excited girl.

Her name was Feferi Peixes, and she was your first young love.

She went to school with you, and she was your best friend. When she found your ghost, she was understandably devastated, but you got to bond with her once more even in death. Her favorite color, as well as her older sister Connie's favorite color, was always fuchsia, and you have the feeling you know who owns this house.

But you were only meant to be friends with Feferi, and the bond you had grown with her in death was broken when you, your brother and your father pushed the two sisters out, quite literally. While Cronus and Orpheus made their lives a living hell, hiding things and breaking things and bugging them when they were busy, you stood by and did nothing. You still beat yourself up about it.

Nonetheless, you're over that like the mature adult you were supposed to be (if you hadn't died) and continue on in death to meet other people. At this point you've realized that yes, your relationship with Feferi was never meant to go beyond best friends and you've accepted it.

While you've been lost in your thoughts, you haven't been paying attention to where you're going and end up in Sollux- no, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter. He hasn't seem to have noticed, but you step to the side anyway. That was weird.

It's nearing dinner time, so you sigh as you have to go back to the mansion, and the four of you start heading back. There's a comfortable silence in the air as you walk along the side of the road that leads to the mansion, the sun slowly going down, not quite so high in the sky anymore.

In the meantime you're definitely not checking out Sollux's ass, walking behind him, but Cronus nudges you from his place beside you and winks, and later when questioned you deny looking in any general direction of any parts of Sollux's body. You didn't. It never happened.

When you four get back, you head back up to Sollux's room to avoid the whole being-questioned-by-parents-for-10-years thing. Even your own father sometimes did that to you after school, though most of the time he was busy with work and stuff. You survived, though, so hopefully Sollux and Mituna will.

After setting yourself on the bed and lying back, you're startled when you hear your father's voice, "Hello, son."

You sit up, waving at him, "Hi father."

He sits down next to you, raising an eyebrow, "Cronus tells me you have a thing for the twin that lives in this room."

You flush horribly and spend the next 30 seconds making an array of shocked and disgusted sounds before finally spluttering, "I wwould never!"

He raises his other eyebrow.

You keep spluttering.

He decides to put you out of your misery and interrupt you by saying, "It wouldn't work, you know. We're ghosts. Remember what happened last time-"

"Yes, I fuckin' get it, wwe're ghosts an' can't interact wwith the livvin' cause a some stupid bullshit that happened 25 years ago, I get it!" you snap at him, crossing your arms sulkily.

He just sighs, used to you and your dramatic bullshit, and gets up to leave. As he's at the door, he turns and says, "Look, son… I just don't want you to become too attached again. Okay?"

When you don't reply, he sighs and leaves.

You groan and collapse on the bed.

You don't have any feelings for Sollux.

You don't.

But that night, when you're watching Sollux converse with Aradia and her dark red text over some Trollian thing, and you realize he's smiling while talking to her but doesn't seem to notice, you try to ignore the feeling of jealousy in your heart.


	11. More Jealousy, And A Change

9. More Jealousy, And A Change In Perspective

Your name is now Cronus Ampora, and you had fun watching your father talk to Eridan about the whole Sollux thing. You laughed at him- he was definitely checking out Sollux's ass. And he could have Sollux all he wanted; no, you were after his twin, Mituna. Sure, Sollux was cute, you'd admit that because they're twins, but Mituna is his own brand of cute. He's enthusiastic, and excitable, and fuckin' cute when he's sleeping… not that you watch him when he's sleeping.

But he's always going out with "Tula", whom you've gathered is Latula, and so you wouldn't have a chance there. You guess this is what Eridan feels like. It's been at least a week since you four went out to explore town… but Mituna's been going out with his new friends more and more often.

But whatever. You're just waiting for him to get back, you guess, but it's pretty damn boring. So instead you go over to Erida- fuck, Sollux's room, you keep forgetting it's not his anymore. It's been too long since it was actually your father's house, so you could call the master bedroom Orpheus's bedroom, and your bedroom Cronus's bedroom, and Eridan's bedroom was Eridan's bedroom. Damn.

Whatever. You sigh and go over to Eridan's room, but when you arrive, you find Eridan sulking outside. The door's closed.

"Um, vwhat's goin' on, chief?" you ask, raising an eyebrow and shifting your cigarette to the other side of your mouth.

"Sol kicked me out yesterday an' hasn't let me back in since then," he grumbles sullenly, looking down at the floor, his arms around his knees pressed close to his chest.

You can't help but snort, taking out your cigarette to not lose it. "You're tellin' me that scrawny fuckin' nerd kicked you, a powerful ghost that could be in his room regardless a' vwhat he vwanted, out a' his room?"

"Shut up, Cro," he sulks some more, staring defiantly at the floor.

You snort again and say, "You gotta teach these humans some respect, chief. They ain't gonna respect ya if ya just roll ovwer for them vwhen they tell you to. I'm goin' in an' havwin' a talk vwith him."

Before Eridan can protest, you stroll straight through the door and you can't even believe it.

There's soda cans and empty chip bags everywhere, and clothes strewn about, and all the lights are off. You wouldn't even be able to see the mess everywhere if it hadn't been for the computer screen light, with a silhouette on it which looks suspiciously like Sollux. You go over to him, trying to avoid the piles of oh my god you swear something just moved, and go to the side of his desk.

He doesn't acknowledge you.

You sigh and poke him. "Hey. Hey chief."

Nothing.

He just keeps typing.

You frown and ask, "Vwhy'd ya kick my little bro out?"

He still doesn't respond.

You sigh and say, "Look, man-"

"Shut the fuck up."

You freeze, shocked. Those words seem to have come out of his mouth, yes, but he didn't turn to look at you, or acknowledge you at all. "Um… vwhat vwas that you just said?" you ask, just to make sure, awkwardly scratching the back of your neck.

"I thaid shut the fuck up. I'm buthy," and that's all you get out of him for the next 10 minutes you try to talk to him. Time to up your game.

You go outside the room to meet Eridan again, who doesn't even bother to greet you. Rude. "Hey. Eri," you poke him with your foot.

He groans and looks up at you, scowling. "Wwhat do you wwant?"

"Come in vwith me. He ain't respondin' to anythin' I do," you whine, now trying to tug at his arm.

He smacks at your hand, then groans dramatically and stands up. "Fuckin' fine, I'll help you in wwhatevver dumb thing you'vve thought up this time."

He hesitates to follow you through the door to Sollux's room, but apparently decides "Fuck it" and follows you anyway. Then shrieks so loudly people miles away could probably hear it so clear it was like he was standing right next to them.

"Wwhat the FUCK havve you done to my- this room?!" he yells at the figure in front of the computer, obviously outraged.

But Sollux doesn't respond.

And just as Eridan is about to go on a rant, a rant so memorable generations will be talking about it for ages, Sollux slams both palms on his desk on either side of his computer and shouts, "Yeth! I'm in!"

Eridan freezes, obviously surprised. Nobody ignores Eridan but talks to themselves, you guess. Whatever.

"You're in… wwhat?" he hesitantly asks, still looking pretty confused.

"I got into the computer network the mayor runth!" Sollux exclaims, turning around and grinning from ear-to-ear. You don't think you've ever seen him smile. Wow. Eridan sure looks even more surprised.

"Vwell, congrats?" you say, shrugging.

He immediately goes back to scowling (you notice Eridan looking a bit disappointed) and replies, "I'm doing it to find out what happened to you!"

"Oh. Vwell then, that's good I guess, but didn't evwerybody delete all files concerin' vwhat happened to us?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I'm nearly pothitive they kept thome fileth contherning what happened, even if they keep it under thome of the betht virtual lockth pothible. Which ith what I got patht," he says proudly, gesturing to his computer. You and Eridan get closer to see, and it's a bunch of files on screen, all labeled differently.

"You kicked me out of wwhat used to be my owwn fuckin' room for this bullshit?" Eridan asks, scowling at Sollux.

Sollux scowls right back to stand up and get in Eridan's face- they're about the same height, although Sollux is a bit taller. "Are you telling me you don't fucking appreciate the time I've thpent trying to get through thith? The hourth I thpent chugging energy drinkth and eating chipth jutht to get to information that could help you move on? That I've done for you and your undead family?"

Eridan hisses and moves even closer, just a foot away. "You aren't doin' this shit for us, are you, though? No, you said it yourself you're doin' it 'cause you wwant us _gone. _You wwant us outta this house so you can finally quite wworryin' about me wwatchin' you in the showwer or some shit. You don't wwant us to movve on, no; you just wwant us out of the house. You said so yourself."

Sollux crosses his arms and quits slouching for once so he can look down his nose at Eridan, arguing, "Are you fucking kidding me? I thpent fucking HOURTH on thith shit, and that'th all you have to thay to me? That I'm doing thith for mythelf inthtead of for you? You should be grateful I'm doing thith at all, athhat."

By this time they're so close their noses are nearly touching, and look one step from either angrily kissing or punching each other in the face, so you roll your eyes and use your hands to separate them, stepping between them. "Look, Eri, he IS doin' this. Maybe not for us, but the fact that he's doin' it at all is fine. An' Captor, back offa my brother. He's naturally offended my most evwerythin' that pertains to him. Nowv both a' you, calm dowvn an' get outta each other's faces so Captor can go back to vwork, diggin' up files an' stuff."

They both sigh and, after sending glares to each other, part ways. Sollux goes back to the computer, digging around in the files, and Eridan goes to sit down on the bed. You follow and sit next to him, then put an arm around him. "C'mon, Eri', you can't take out your sexual frustration on evverbody that movves in."

"Fuck you, I ain't sexually frustrated," he snaps, shrugging your arm off of him.

"You totally are," Sollux chimes in from the computer, and you have to physically hold Eridan down so he won't go over and punch him in the face.

"Wwell, let's see you be a ghost for wwho knowws howw many years an' NOT be sexually frustrated," Eridan hisses at Sollux, crossing his arms and scowling.

"Even if I were a ghotht I'd be picking up people left and right," Sollux scoffs, but still typing away at the computer.

"Sure you wwould," Eridan grumbles sulkily, glaring at Sollux's back.

The next couple of minutes are an awkward silence, mostly Sollux typing and you trying to comfort Eridan while he slaps your arm away from his shoulders, until Sollux finally shouts, "I got thomething!"

You and Eridan are over there in an instant, you on Sollux's left side and Eridan on his right. Sollux is oblivious to you two basically invading his privacy, and starts talking. "Tho, there'th a file I jutht found in the Mayor'th laptop-"

"You got into the Mayor's fuckin' laptop?!" Eridan exclaims, looking down at Sollux in shock.

Sollux glowers at him, mutters a quick "Shut the fuck up", then continues.

"Ath I wath thaying, there'th thith file I jutht found. It'th a Word document that theemth to be in the form of… a journal?"

-This fucking bullshit won't let me add a break here so I'm putting this here. Enjoy.-

Your name is now Jack Noir and you're so done serving under Mayor English. Along with Connie Peixes, you help the Mayor out with anything he needs. Right now His Highness has you researching the family that recently moved into the Ampora Mansion, but nothing's really turning up, except basic info, like the head Captor's job and the two sons' school stuff. Turns out they're all tech geniuses or something.

But you're completely done with the whole case. Your computer, along with English's and Peixes's, is supposed to go off when someone searches anything related to the Amporas or the mansion, so when it went off a little over a week ago, it was your job to track down the idiot that searched it and find out everything about them. Kind of like an assassin.

So you found out from the librarian, Aranea (after lots of threats), that it was one of the twins who moved into the mansion. You've spent a ridiculous amount of time researching them, and you've gotten pretty much nothing. This job is such bullshit. Why can't Peixes do this instead?

Anyway, since this is the first time you've been you, do something interesting.

You would visit the mansion and speak to the Captors directly, but what Connie said… she said that the ghosts of the Amporas still lived there. That afforded both you and English a good laugh, especially when she told you two how the ghosts had "driven her out" and everything, so she dared you two to visit the house. She had recently vacated it, and pronounced it to be on sale, so you two went, making fun of her the whole way.

You weren't making fun of her on the way back.

You got stuff thrown at you, and screamed at, and all sorts of things. You'd think that English would've just tried to get rid of the house, to get rid of the ghosts, but that could have all sorts of unwanted consequences. Like what if it didn't destroy the ghosts, but they escaped and went off into the world, telling all sorts of stories? Or if people got suspicious of why anybody was destroying the mansion for reasons other than that people died there.

Yeah, so getting rid of the mansion would be a bad idea, period. Plus it's a really nice house, with a nice design and layout.

Back to the point… you're researching the Captors and anything that turns up you report to your boss, although nothing particularly interesting has come up. You're not even sure why you're supposed to be researching them. As long as they don't know about the Amporas, and they shouldn't because all records of anything concerning that were destroyed, they shouldn't be any trouble, right?

But it's "extremely important", according to your boss. Ugh. You close all the windows you have open and exit your office, looking for the Mayor among all the different rooms in the Town Hall. There's so many damn rooms, and multiple floors, so there are so many stairs, man.

I told you about the stairs, bro.

Anyway, you find English in his office (where else would he be?) and go up to his desk, dumping a very small stack of papers on his desk. "This is all I could find on the family. They're really boring."

He just glowers at you before snapping, "I don't care if they're boring, I wanted everything about them. Thank you for getting me the information, but it is up to me to decide what to do with it. You can leave now, and go back to doing the other work I wanted you to do before I prioritized this."

"Yes, sir," you grumble before leaving to navigate all the fucking stairs, back down to your own office on the 2nd floor. Seriously, why isn't there an elevator in this building?

And so you leave Mayor English with any and all information regarding the Captor family, for him to deal with them as he pleases… though, him being- well, him, that could mean anything, from talking them into moving to… "dealing" with them.

No matter what he does, you hope this whole matter is dealt with soon, because you're so done with dealing with this case.


	12. Who Even Keeps Diaries Anymore?

Hi guys! It's been a while since I've put beginning notes, so yeah. Lots of plot here, some relationshippy stuff. Idk when the next chapter will be out though, sorry! Enjoy this chapter! (: Also, friendly reminder the Fanfiction does not allow me to answer anon reviews, but this is an Erisol fic, yes, and thank you to the person who suggested Aradia being able to see ghosts! It's interesting, and i'll think about the idea. (:

12. Who Even Keeps Diaries Anymore? (Eridan Does, But Shhh)

Your name is Eridan Ampora once more, and you really want to smack the lispy fucker in the computer chair (hint: it's Sollux) but you won't because he said something interesting for once.

"Wwhy the fuck wwould anybody keep a fuckin' diary or some shit?" you ask, trying to look as disgusted as possible.

"Didn't you used to havwe a diary, Eri'?" Cronus asks, smirking, and you smack him.

Sollux turns to the both of you with an annoyed look on his face and says, "Look, normally it'd be great to invethtigate thith "diary" ED thuppothedly hath, but I'm trying to read thith bullshit, tho could you two not?"

After that you both shut up.

Sollux reads the journal entries out loud, but since it would be a pain in the ass to write his lisp into them, you read over his shoulder and try to stay the same pace as the pace he's reading at.

_August 30__th_

_Today is the first day I'll start writing in this journal, order of the boss. Complete bullshit. I have to keep tabs on the Amporas, although the two sons aren't who we're after, so I'm not sure why I have to keep an eye on them. It's the father that's really interesting, anyway._

"Wwhat the fuck is this…?" you mumble to yourself, and Sollux smacks you on the arm. You turn to punch him in the face, because by _god_ he's annoying, but Cronus easily separates you too.

"Can I not have any interruptionth? I know it'th weird, but theriouthly," Sollux snaps. You become the bigger person and ignore him, going back to reading over his shoulder.

_It's the father that's really interesting, anyway. Why would some super rich guy move his family out here? He lived in New York originally, but he moved here with his two sons after getting people to build the mansion according exactly to his plans. He wasn't retiring, no- he just came here to get away from the business of New York. He still runs his business, just from his mansion. There's nothing really interesting about them, I'm not sure why I have to- fuck it. Apparently the boss has some beef with Orpheus Ampora, so I have to keep an eye on them._

_September 7__th_

_Something is happening. The boss is getting more and more antsy about the Amporas- they seem to have… taken over the town, I guess? They're extremely popular- well, at least the father is. I've heard stories about the sons. It seems they're not so popular in school. I haven't met with them, but people tell me they're real assholes. I wouldn't doubt it. The father is extremely popular with all the townspeople, pretty much everybody. People are even saying that he's more popular than the mayor. He's probably not so happy about that. But everybody loves the eldest Ampora._

_September 15__th_

_The boss has decided what he wants to do with the Amporas. It's dirty, and he knows that, but he has to get rid of them. They're a potential threat to this town. The boss had them under his thumb, but they came and fucked everything up. Of course, I have to clean up after him, but it's fine if I'm doing this for a raise. I'd better get a raise. Anyway, the boss says he's going to deal with them soon. I'm not sure how he plans to do it yet, but I suppose I'll find out._

_September 20__th_

_The boss says we're going to do it in a week. I'm ready to do whatever it is he wants me to do._

_September 24__th_

_The boss has been making preparations._

_September 25__th_

_We're going to kill them all in 2 days. I hope there's not much mess to clean up afterwards._

_September 26__th_

_Soon._

_September 30__th_

_It's done._

"Holy fuckin' shit," you breathe out, and ignore the glare Sollux is sending you.

_It's done. It was easy enough. The boss, C, and I went in easily enough- Ampora even invited us in. Ha! It's amazing how stupid some people are. After we went in, the two sons greeted us, albeit coldly. They both looked like impertinent little snots. Anyway, they sat us down for some tea and we made small chat. Then C asked to go to the bathroom, and left to take care of the younger one. Once she came back, I left to take care of the older one. Once those two were dead, the boss easily took care of Orpheus. When that was done, we hid the bodies, and told people that they had disappeared, although I'm sure those fucking peasants spread rumors of their own. Nonetheless, C and I got to take care of everything afterwards. I think I'm finished with this stupid journal now; I don't need it anymore. But I'll send it to the boss, then delete it off mine._

And that's where it ended.

You three stand there in shock over what you just read. How could some asshole be so… nonchalant over your death?

You don't realize you're shaking with rage until Sollux lays a hand on your shoulder, and you calm down, closing your eyes and putting your head down.

"I can't believwe this," Cronus mutters, taking his cigarette out and leaning against the desk.

"Neither can we," a voice comes from outside the door, and the other 3 members of the household step inside.

"Are you tellin' me you guys wwere outside the whole fuckin' time?" you growl, turning to glare at them.

"Don't worry, son, it's alright. This… journal was important, and it's better to hear it quoted directly then messed up by a teenager," your father replies.

Sollux flushes and snaps, "I could've quoted it jutht fine on my own!"

"I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about my own son," he replies, looking down his nose at you. Ouch.

"Wwhatevver," you grumble and turn back towards the computer.

"Thith ith a huge breakthrough! Shouldn't you guyth be more excited?!" Mituna asks, obviously excited himself.

"So that's how vwe died, huh," Cronus mutters. You hadn't noticed until now, but he's been keeping to himself all of this time. It's unlike him.

"It didn't thpethifically thay how you guyth died, or where they hid the bodieth," Sollux notes, frowning.

"So basically we have no clues," Simon says glumly.

"I could alwayth break in deeper, but I'm pretty sure thith ith the only record they have of it," Sollux says, turning around to face everyone.

"Then there's no point in that, is there?" Orpheus says, sighing, then he adds, "I can keep an eye on the Mayor and his 2 assistants in case we can get more information from them. You 5 stay here. Sollux, see if you can find anything else. Eridan, keep him company. Cronus and Mituna, help them if you can. Simon… um, do whatever you can." He "um"ed. How cute.

Then you realize he asked you to keep Sollux company.

"Wwait, I havve to stay wwith this asshole?" you exclaim, pointing at Sollux.

"I'm not happy about it either, but thuck it up, fishdick," Sollux snaps, slapping your hand away from him.

"You two cats really need to vwork out your sexual tension," Cronus laughs before leaving the room.

You don't even bother to correct him and instead sigh and slump down on the bed. Mituna follows Cronus out, and Orpheus and Simon soon leave as well. Which means you're alone with Sollux.

Great.

But he's just going to be hacking the system for a few hours, so instead you start cleaning up the room. The empty chip bags and fucking energy drinks are still everywhere, so you go downstairs to find the garbage bags, which is an experience all on its own.

"Did he kick you out again?" Cronus smirks at you from the couch in the living room, unfortunately visible from the kitchen.

"No, in fact he fuckin' didn't. I'm cleanin' up his room," you snap, quickly finding the garbage bags (under the kitchen sink) and attempting to leave.

"Not so fast, chief! It's been a vwhile. Vwe should catch up!" he grins as he grabs you and pulls you to the couch, sitting down next to you.

"No wwe really shouldn't," you roll your eyes, but don't attempt to leave again because you know he'll just keep bugging you.

"So. I see you got your eyes set on a certain nice-lookin' piece a meat, huh?" he smirks at you.

"He ain't a piece a meat," you growl- well, fuck. It's okay, he totally caught you staring at Sollux's ass earlier, he knows you like him already.

"Vwhatevwer he is, I know you got your sights set on him. How's that goin'?" he asks, nudging you.

You grumble, then sigh and answer, "Not vvery wwell. He keeps hangin' out wwith that Aradia chick, an' I fuckin' knoww he likes her an'… yeah."

"Don't vworry, lil' bro. It'll all vwork itself out in the end, I promise," he smiles as he ruffles your hair.

"But wwhat if it wworks out wwith him getting' together wwith… her?" you groan, putting your face in your hands.

"It'll be fine," Cronus says, pulling you in for a hug. You flail at first, but begrudgingly accept it.

"Wwell, I havve to go noww. Cleanin' up Sol's pigsty a a room," you complain, but you know it was your decision in the first place.

"Havwe fun!" Cronus snickers, and you roll your eyes before leaving and going back up to Sollux's room.

It hasn't changed since you were here last. There is still garbage everywhere, and Sollux is still in front of his computer. And he's still ignoring you while he hacks. Fine then.

You pick up all the chip bags and put them into one bag, then put the energy drink cans in a different bag. If Sollux notices you cleaning up (pretty much impossible), he doesn't say anything.

Once the room is clean, you put the full bags in the kitchen and leave them there for someone else to take care of them. You're not THAT nice.

When you get back, Sollux is still on his computer, so you lie down on the bed and close your eyes. Hopefully, whatever happens between you and Sollux will be good and you both can be happy.


	13. Orpheus The Explorer, And Even More

Hello everyone! I hope the pesterlog colors work, so yay. Enjoy!

13. Orpheus The Explorer, And Even More Sexual Tension

Your name is Orpheus Ampora, and you've decided to investigate the Mayor since nobody else can, except maybe your sons but you want to do this alone. Over the past years when you were dead, you 3 had no reason to do anything about your deaths. You were dead, and that was that, right? You couldn't change it, no matter what, but you could always float around and scare the shit out of people. That was always fun.

So you three got used to being dead and not doing anything to find out who your murderers were and catch them- which, in retrospect, wasn't that good of an idea. You guess you should've been working on it, but you never thought it would work. Like how could you find your killers? You had no resources, no clues. It seemed impossible.

Until the Captors moved in.

They were a blessing to the household, really. They got you, Cronus, and Eridan off your asses and out to do work. Which is what you should've been doing. Whatever.

Nonetheless, here you are, ghosting around in the Town Hall, trying to find the Mayor's office. It really shouldn't be this hard, shouldn't they have signs or something? Ah- you enter a random room, honestly just hoping it's the Mayor's at this point.

It's not.

You sigh in defeat and are about to leave when suddenly someone comes through the door, grumbling to himself.

He's shorter than you, maybe in the 5 feet range, and his left arm is in a sling. He looks grumpy, with a scar over his left eye and a scowl on his face. His hair is a dark black, and you read his name on the desk- Jack Noir. Huh. Isn't that Mayor English's right-hand man? Well, he's definitely not his left-hand man. Heh. You refrain from laughing at your own joke, which was hilarious fuck you, and instead stand there and watch what he does.

He sits down at his desk, still grumbling- you can't even understand him- and turns on his computer. You move to look over his shoulder, wondering what he could be doing. But what he opens is just a bunch of Mayor-y stuff, like keeping track of citizens and stuff. Whatever it is is of no interest to you, considering you're after info on your murder.

You exit the room and think while you're wandering. In the journal, there were 3 people- the "boss", C, and the writer. You suppose C could be… Connie. Heh, you remember her. She tried to move in, along with her younger sister, some time ago… she was a cruel person. You remember you had fun driving her out.

Nonetheless, could it be? Then the "boss" could be the mayor, and the author… the author would be Noir.

Holy shit.

You freeze where you are, in the middle of the hallway. Stunning revelation aside, there's a woman standing a few feet in front of you.

She's as tall as you, and Asian, her hair tied back with two long pieces on either side of her head. She's wearing a green dress, and she's stopped as well, with a poker face, but her eyes are trained directly on you. You hesitantly move to the right, attempting to go past her. Her eyes follow you. Creepy.

You try to keep walking past her, and nearly jumping out of your ghostly skin when one of her pale hands latches onto your arm. And you can't move.

You can't help but think this is strange. Technically, you're in full ghost form, so she shouldn't be able to see you, never mind touch you. But that's what she's doing. She sees you, definitely, and she won't let you move with the grip she has on your arm.

Shit.

You struggle, trying to make a break for it, but she knocks your feet out from under you and drags you down the hallway, going somewhere. You keep struggling, scratching at her hand and trying to regain purchase on the floor with your feet, but it's no use.

Then, just as she's turning a corner, you hit your head on the leg of a table and all you can remember is still being dragged before blacking out.

Your name is Sollux Captor and once again, you're so done with Eridan.

You've been working for a long time, coding and hacking and coding more. But throughout that all that time, fucking _Eridan _has been fucking around on the bed, sighing to himself and going through your stuff and cleaning up your empty chip bags and it's _fucking annoying._

You're ready to punch him in the face.

But you won't.

Instead you try to concentrate on hacking into computers, but you've gone through all the computers in the building, and there's nothing else on the murder of the Amporas in any of them. You could hack your way through all the computers in the town, but that would take too long and you still have school to deal with, although nothing interesting has happened there.

So you really can't do anything else, unless you have a week off school anytime soon, and could go on a coding binge like you are known to do. But you know that would lead to Eridan bugging you, because he can't go without attention for at least 5 minutes. Even though you've been ignoring him for at least… wow, it's been 8 hours. Amazing.

Well, he has been leaving the room a lot, so you assume he's been talking to Cronus or Mituna.

You shake your head of these thoughts, when suddenly Aradia messages you on Pesterchum.

- apocalypseArisen [AA] began pestering twinArmageddons [TA] at 11:37 -

AA: hey s0llux!

TA: hey aa.

TA: what2 up?

AA: n0thing 0-0

AA: just that

AA: maybe I have a b0yfriend now

TA: that2 great!

TA: iim happy for you, aa.

AA: thank y0u sollux 0u0

AA: n0 that face looks stupid

TA: you 2ay that every tiime, aa.

TA: and every tiime you cant fiind a good face.

AA: i kn0w

TA: 2o who2 the lucky man?

AA: equius 0u0

TA: 2hiit. really?

AA: yes 0u0

TA: aww, that2 cute.

TA: how diid iit happen?

AA: well ive liked him f0r a while n0w

AA: and he asked me 0ut the 0ther day

AA: 0ut t0 dinner that is

AA: s0 i said yes 0u0

TA: i 2ee you've giiven up on the face, then.

TA: and congrat2

AA: thank y0u, s0llux! and yes, ive accepted this face.

AA: i have t0 g0 n0w and get ready for my date

TA: have fun, aa.

AA: thanks! bye 0u0

TA: bye, aa.

- apocalypseArisen [AA] ceased pestering twinArmageddons [TA] at 11:50 -

You sit back and grin. You've seen this coming for a while now, and you're honestly happy for her. She's such a good friend to you, and… well, Equius told you he likes Aradia, since you and Aradia are obviously close, and you told him to go for it- you've known she likes him for a while now too.

You did your best to act surprised when she told you Equius could be her boyfriend. And it seems to have passed as surprised enough, so yay.

You look around for Eridan, but he's gone again. Ugh. You wish he'd stay in one place; he's distracting you.

Nonetheless, you quickly crack your knuckles and get back to work, hacking anybody who might have a connection with the murder in the town. You access the town records easily. Perfect.

Time to get to work.

Your name is now Cronus Ampora, and you're talking with your younger brother, Eridan. He's still complaining about his love life. Yay.

He's been unlucky in his love life in the past, of course. In actual life, he's never been with anyone, mostly because people couldn't stand him. He must've come off as haughty and smug, using big words to demean people and verbally spitting on "peasants". It's no wonder nobody wanted to be with him.

Then there was Feferi. She and her older sister moved in shortly after you died, and Eridan might've actually had something with her- that is, if he weren't dead and you hadn't driven her out. You still feel kind of bad. You suspect your father does not.

Then there was another one… Vriska, her name was. She and him had a great rivalry going on. They didn't hate each other, no, but you know for a fact that they did make out a lot. Ew. Seriously, you could hear them yelling at each other from rooms away, and then there was a silence, and you and your father both knew what was going on. That's probably why you drove Vriska and her older sister out, too,

And now he's complaining about Sollux.

Sollux.

You know there's some definite sexual tension between those two. Everybody can see it except them. They act like they hate each other, but you know they don't. They just have unresolved sexual tension.

You've told Eridan before that they just need to fuck it out, and he didn't talk to you for a few hours after that. He doesn't want to acknowledge it.

"Look lil' bro, I'm tellin' you, you need to fuck it out," you try again, shrugging your shoulders.

"I ain't gonna just 'fuck it out' or wwhatevver. He's a pain in my ass an' he knowws it. There's no sexual tension!" he yells at you, scowling, then he leaves again.

You sigh. He can complain about Sollux being a pain in the ass, but really, he can be just as big a pain in the ass as Sollux.

You move from the living room couch to Mituna's room, remembering you were supposed to hang out with him, orders from your father. And 'do anything you can to help'.

Which means wait by as he takes care of everything.

It always does.

Anyway, you sit down on Mituna's bed, next to him. He's playing a game or something.

"Vwhat's up, chief? Vwhatchya playin'?" you ask, looking over his shoulder.

"A game," he mumbles back, obviously only half-paying attention to you. As usual.

"C'mon, chief. Talk to me. I hardly evwer get to havwe an actual conversation vwith you!" you say, nudging him.

He sighs and saves his game, then puts it down and replies, "What ith there to talk about?"

"I dunno. How's school goin' for you, I guess?"

"It'th going great, actually! I have a bunch of new friendth, and my betht friend ith Latula! She'th totally rad, and-"

He goes on to tell you about this "Latula". She's rad, and likes skateboards, and plays video games… Heh, you think he might like her.

You're not sure how you feel about that.

Mituna's cute, yeah, but you're a ghost. You shouldn't go liking the living. No, it's fine if he gets a girlfriend. You'll be happy for the living couple. Yeah, you don't like him in that way at all.

"-and she'th got thith boyfriend named Kankri, he'th really talkative-"

Shit, never mind, here come the feelings. Wow.

So she has a boyfriend. A whole world of opportunities opens up suddenly, and you fall face-first into them.

"So, do you vwanna go out to dinner sometime?" you interrupt him in the middle of his sentence.

He stops talking and looks over at you, his expression a mix between offended (probably because you interrupted him) and confusion (probably because you asked him out).

"Jutht uth two?" he asks, and you nod. He puts his head on his hand and asks, "Where would we go? And do ghothtth even eat?"

"Someplace in town, I'd find a place. An' a' course vwe do, it just kinda… disappears, you know vwhat I mean?" you ask, gesturing vaguely with your hands.

"No."

"Vwell… it's kinda like… vwe don't really digest it, it just… disappears. I don't get it either, don't vworry, babe."

"Don't call me that."

"Sorry, b- chief. So, is that a yes?"

He sighs and thinks for a moment, then nods and says, "Yeah, okay. Just let me know a time and date and I'll be ready to go."

You grin and reply, "Great! How about tomorrow at 6?"

"That thoundth great," he says, smiling, then picks up his game again and continues playing. You take that as your cue to leave.

Once you're outside, you fist-pump the air and then go downstairs to find Eridan. Time to talk more about relationships, but _your _possible relationship this time.


	14. Brotherly Talks, Interrogation

14. Brotherly Talks, Interrogation and Awkward Dates

I have no excuse for why this is so late, I'm so sorry you guys D: I've been busy with GISHWHES and preparing for school stuff and house chores and wow, I've had writer's block and have been struggling to write this for weeks now, so have this kinda long chapter!

Your name is Eridan Ampora and your brother's bragging about his love life, as usual. He said he's scored with Mituna, which you're a bit surprised with. Mituna? And Cronus? Man, why would Mituna go with him on a date? In your opinion, he's just a scumbag. Though maybe Mituna sees him differently. You don't know.

Nonetheless, it's kind of pissing you off. I mean, yeah, you complain to him about Sollux all the time, but still. Speaking of Sollux…

You were in his room earlier, but he couldn't see you. You were invisible; a ghost, heh. And he was talking with Aradia. You didn't want to look at their conversation- they were probably just flirting with each other. Ugh.

… Maybe you're a little jealous.

Yeah, okay, you're a lot jealous. Your brother "scored" and you didn't? Wow.

"-so I'm pretty fuckin' excited, an' hopefully aftervwards vwe can go back to his room an'-"

Wow.

Yeah, you're done listening to him go on about Mituna. You cut him off, "Look, Cro, not that your sex life ain't fascinatin' an' all, but there's some things I guy shouldn't knoww. I'm goin' to help Sol wwith stuff, okay?" And you leave. He's unfazed by your rudeness and goes off somewhere to plan for tonight, probably. You just go upstairs to visit Sollux's room.

As usual, he's at his computer and typing away. When you look over his shoulder, all you see is a bunch of numbers and wow he just hit you in the face, ow. You grumble and go over to the bed after hearing a mumbled, "Don't look over my shoulder. It'th annoying."

Sollux isn't any interesting when he's busy coding.

Maybe you can get his attention.

"Hey Sol."

Nope.

"Sooooool. Come on, Sol."

Ugh, how is he so deaf to you and your needs?

"Cro and your brother are goin' on a date."

"Wait what the fuck?" he says as he turns to face you, his expression incredulous. Fuckin' finally.

"You heard me."

"Your douchebag older brother… ith going on a date with… Tuna?"

"That's exactly wwhat I wwas thinkin'. Howw the fuck did this happen?"

"…"

"Sol?"

Great, now he's unresponsive. He's sitting there, turned towards you but his head is hanging low so you can't see his eyes- his hair is in his face.

"Um. Sol?"

"Why… the fuck…"

Oh shit, he's twitching now and he sounds _really pissed. _Shit. "Sol, are you okay?"

"With… with him?!-"

"Sol…"

"He would never-"

"Sol, you need to calm down-"

"He WOULDN'T-"

"Sol!"

He stands up and now you can see the expression on his face and oh dear god you wish you couldn't. He looks furious, a scowl on his face and a glare that could probably kill some small animals.

"Uh… Sol? You feelin' okay there?"

"Shut the fuck up," he growls, and you shrink against the wall on the other side of the bed because why is he getting so pissed over his brother going on a date with your brother, wow, but it's still scary.

Your shrinking against the wall thing did nothing, as he crawls onto the bed and pins you against the wall, but not in the fun way. He looked furious before, but now that he's near your face you can actually see on a specific level how fucking pissed he is.

You try and salvage the situation, "Look Sol, I'm sure it ain't that bad- I mean Cro ain't too terrible a' a guy, wwell most a the time anywways, an' it'll be fine-"

He punches you, your rambling pissing him off enough that his fist clips the side of your head and all you see is him leaving before you black out on the bed. The last thing you think is, how the fuck did he manage to knock you out?

Your name is Orpheus Ampora, and you just woke up, tied to a strange chair, in a strange room, with a strange woman standing in front of you.

You've been in weirder situations.

You try to stretch the best you can, seeing as you're tied to a chair and all, but you can barely move, so you sit there uncomfortably.

Instead you look around at your surroundings, taking it all in. It's a plain, dark room, with a lone lightbulb above your head that's turned on, and a table off to your right with a notepad and a pen on it. The door, which you presume to be the exit, is on your left, but other than the chair you're sitting on and the table to your right there's no other furniture in the room.

"So. What am I being interrogated for?" you ask smoothly, raising an eyebrow at the Asian women standing in front of you.

"I ask the questions here," she replies quietly, with an Asian accent. You're surprised she didn't snap at you. You'd snap at you.

"And what questions are those?"

You feel the sting on your cheek and the whiplash before you realize she moved, slapping you across the face.

"I told you I'm asking the questions," she repeats quietly, then says, "Are your Orpheus Ampora?"

You hesitate. Who knows who she works for? Or who she is?

You wisely answer, "… Nope."

She frowns at you, the first facial expression she's made since you first saw her. "You're not Orpheus Ampora?"

"Definitely not."

"Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent."

"What's your name then?"

"… Not Orpheus Ampora."

She slaps you again, on the other cheek this time, and repeats, "What's your name?"

"Ow, fuck," you mumble, then add, "John Smith."

"John Smith?"

"Yep."

This woman slaps you once more, on the same side of your face, and you yelp. "Can you stop fuckin' slappin' me?" Wow there's your accent. It tends to come out when you get angry.

"I will stop once you answer my question honestly. Are you or are you not Orpheus Ampora?"

Once again, you weigh the pros and cons of the situation… and decide that getting slapped again would not be a plus for you. "Yeah, I am, but you probably knew that already."

You get slapped anyway. "Don't assume things. Now, why are you here?"

"Because you dragged me here." Your attempt at being sassy gets you slapped again, and you think your face is completely red with slap-marks now.

"Answer the fucking question," she snaps, and she looks angry now.

"You mean why I was I in the building?"

"Yes."

"Well, you're gonna have to answer some of my questions first."

"I don't need to answer any of your questions."

"How could you see me?"

She ignores you, just glaring at you coldly.

You sigh and ask again, "I was a ghost, and I was invisible. How did you see me?" As you're speaking, you experimentally tug on the rope binding you. Even if you turn invisible- and somehow you turned not invisible while out of it, so humans can see you now and you can touch things- who knows if you can get away fast enough? Because she can see you when you're invisible, you probably wouldn't been able to get away fast enough.

You try turning your wrists, behind the chair you're tied to, invisible, but for some reason you can't get out of the rope. You try not to frown as you tug a bit harder, but to no avail. Unless one of your sons comes to find you, you're screwed.

Meanwhile, the Asian woman has been staring at you with increasingly unnerving eyes. And she hasn't said a word the entire time you've been thinking. That's… really creepy.

"Well?" you ask, starting to get irritated.

She sighs and responds, "I'm not telling you anything about me. Just tell me why you're here, or I'll just knock you out again and again and again until you tell me."

"I was creeping around to assassinate the Mayor," you say sarcastically, but it seems she takes you seriously and frowns, going over to the nearby table and writing something down on the notepad. Well, you guess that's your excuse now. Apparently Ms. Asian Woman doesn't understand sarcasm.

"So," you start conversationally, "Are you ever going to tell me how you can see me, even when I'm a ghost? You know I'm a ghost by now."

"I'm a psychic!" she whirls around to glare at you, throwing her hands up. "I can see ghosts and other beings across the spectrum, even if other humans can't see them, okay?"

You sit there, floored for a moment. You never suspected beings like that actually existed. You've heard of psychics, of course, but you thought they were bullshit. Just old ladies who wanted to make a little money being a "fortune-teller" at fairs, or made-up stuff like that. You didn't think they actually existed.

"A psychic, huh?" you ask, raising an eyebrow,

"Yeah. I didn't want to tell you but you were getting annoying," she replies, scowling and moving back in front of you.

"Oh, thanks," you mumble sarcastically, but she doesn't seem to hear you.

"So, why were you going to assassinate the Mayor?" she asks you then, crossing her arms.

Shit, now you have to think up something. "I was, uh… getting… revenge."

"For what?"

"For… stealing my money. Yeah. He stole money from my bank account."

"Right," she says, writing something else down in the notebook.

"Is that all, or can I go now?" you ask, tugging at your bonds.

"No, we're keeping you for further investigation. And don't even bother trying to get out of that rope- it's ghost-proof. I made it myself," she adds smugly, and with that, leaves.

Looks like you're stuck here until they let you go. And they think you're here to assassinate Mayor English. Great.

Your name is now Mituna Captor, and you're going on a date with Cronus in a few minutes. You took the time to get ready- you didn't want to dress up too fancy, no. But you're wearing a nice red and blue button up under a black sweater, and you're wearing nice jeans, so it's fancy enough.

You have no idea where he's taking you, but hopefully it's someplace you'll like. Sure it'll be weird having dinner with a ghost, especially since he's got his weird "I don't digest food it disappears" thing or whatever, but it'll probably be fine. Then again, what if somebody recognizes him?

What if somebody _does _recognize him?

What will you do then?

Probably make a run for it, you tell yourself as you shrug. Besides, not many people would want to approach him anyway, heh.

You adjust your sweater and hear a knock on your door, so you go to open it. It's Cronus.

"Ready to go?" he asks, moving to the side and holding out a hand.

You flush but take his hand, smiling discreetly and mumbling, "Yeah."

He pulls you downstairs and out the door, just holding your hand as you two walk down the driveway path towards town.

Neither of you say anything, and you can feel the awkward tension building. One of you has to say something soon or you'll flip out.

"So there's this restaurant I vwas thinkin' of- it's the one vwe passed back on that day vwe all vwent out to explore the town, the small cute one vwith the ovwerhang ovwer the outside space," Cronus suggests, turning his head towards you.

Oh thank god, you thought you were gonna have to be the one to start a conversation. "Wath that the one with all the plantth outthide?"

"Yeah, that's the one, ba- chief," he trips over his words, trying not to call you babe- just like you asked him not to. How nice.

"I'd be okay with that," you reply, and then the two of you go back to silence. It's a bit less awkward, but you still feel weird walking around with your hand in his, so you take your hand back and let it swing by your side along with your other hand. If Cronus noticed, he didn't say anything.

By the time you two get there, the tension has gotten thick again and you want to get this awkward date over as soon as possible.

You tell the waiter you want a table for two, and he seats you and Cronus inside, then gives you menus. Ah, he sat you two in a secluded corner. Great.

"Tho… why did you athk me out on a date?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. You figure you deserve answers, and also you want to make sure he's not just doing this out of desperation or to make fun of you.

"I like you, chief. You're cute, funny, an' you havwe a good personality. Honestly I dunno vwhy all the chicks at your school aren't hangin' all ovwer ya," he says, shrugging.

You flush again and look down, sufficiently embarrassed. "Well… I don't have chickth hanging all over me, tho… yeah. It'th fine, though, I mean my betht friend, Tula, hath a boyfriend already, otherwithe I might've athked her out."

"Oh. Vwell that's alright, chief," he smiles, then takes a look at his menu. "Hm. Vwhat type a' food are you gettin'? I'm thinkin' a burger or somethin' like that…"

You look at your own menu and skim it, wondering what you could be in the mood for. "Um, I wath thinking… a thandwich, or thomething like that, I dunno," you answer, looking at the sandwiches.

And then things become awkward again while you decide what you want for dinner. This is probably one of the most awkward dates you've been on ever.

After the waiter comes, you both order drinks and food and the waiter leaves, you turn to Cronus and ask, "So, what'th it like being a ghotht?"

He raises an eyebrow and replies, "Vwell, vwhat parts do you vwanna know, doll?"

"Don't call me that."

"Sorry, Mit."

"… That'th okay. Tho, ghothtth… do you guyth have to go to the bathroom?"

"Uh, no."

"But you can eat?"

"… Yeah?"

"Where doeth the food go?"

"I told ya, it just… disappears."

"Can you thleep at all?"

"No, I can't. Neither can Eri or father. I think it's a ghost thin'."

"What do you do for fun, then?"

"Bug the shit outta humans. Vwhat else is there to do?"

"That'th nice. Ith it normal for ghothtth and humanth to go on dinner dateth together?"

"Uh, no. That's not somethin'… most ghosts normally do, considerin' vwe're dead an' vwouldn't havwe much chance vwith a human who knows vwe're ghosts anyvway. An' vwe vwouldn't havwe much a' a future vwith a human, either."

"Then why did you want to go on a date with me, if ghothtth "don't have a future" with humanth?"

"Oh, I'm sure once this whole "who murdered the Amporas" thin' is ovwer, vwe can hang out more, get to know each other a little better, Mit."

"But if we do end up together, it won't work out. I'll grow old while you stay 18 or however old you are, and I'll be like 60 and it would be weird. Bethideth, after I die, I probably won't be thticking around in the mansion. I might be moving on, to whatever ith after life. Altho, if we tholve your murder, then you might move on and I'll be thtuck here for 60 more yearth, until I die. What made you think thith date wath a good idea?" you finish, leaning back and crossing your arms.

Cronus sighs, looking down at his lap, then back up at you. "Look, Mituna… I really do like you. A lot. An' really, no matter vwhat happens to us, if vwe do end up together or not, I hope it's good. I'd like us to be together, but me bein' a ghost an' all could be a bit a' an obstacle, but I'm not goin' to let that stop me, okay? Also, a' all those scenarios you just described, vwe end up together- vwhether as friends or more than that- in all a' them, don't vwe?"

He gives you a smile, a genuine one, and you can't help but smile back, looking down. "Yeah, I gueth tho."

That's when your food arrives, and you and Cronus spend the rest of your dinner date in a comfortable silence. You walk home together, and this time when he takes your hand, you don't pull away.

You think you'll be happy, together with this douchebag, eventually.


	15. The Chapter Where Stuff Happens

15. The Chapter Where Stuff Happens

Can I just say I'm super sorry for how late this is? Like super sorry D: With school starting and everything- seriously, I have so much homework, why?- and I recently got a cold and yeah, not fun stuff. Also, there is no sex in this chapter. Sorry. Maybe in later chapters, but not this chapter, nope. Well, enjoy, and hopefully the next one won't be so late!

Your name is now Simon Captor, who you haven't been for a while. Yeah, that makes sense. You're currently at home, and you just got back from work. It's been a long day, what with kids going to school and ghosts in your house and everything. You're surprised you haven't flipped your shit yet. Maybe the pressure of work and ghosts and more work will all build up and one day you'll explode, but until then, you'll be fine.

You don't see anybody at home; that's strange. Eh, whatever. You know Sollux and Eridan are supposed to be hacking, Cronus and Mituna are helping however, and Orpheus… Orpheus went to go check out the town hall a while ago. He left before you left for work. You hope he's okay.

The house seems weirdly quiet, so you suppose everybody is out doing stuff in town. You go over to the fridge in the kitchen and get out sandwich materials, even though it's almost dinner time. You'll live.

Suddenly, Sollux walks in, looking furious. "Where the fuck did they go?" he snaps, and you jump, startled.

"Where did who go?" you ask, raising an eyebrow and pausing your making of your sandwich.

"Cronuth and Tuna," he spits out, seething.

"Okay Sollux, you need to calm down. I don't know where they went, and I didn't even know they were going anywhere," you say, putting your hands on his arms to try and calm him down.

"They went on a date, Dad!" Sollux says, obviously expecting you to get angry or something with the way he's looking at you.

"Well, that's good for them, then. Now calm down and get back to work," you say as you pat him on the arm, then turn back to your sandwich to finish making it.

"You aren't upthet?" Sollux asks incredulously.

You laugh and shake your head, "No, I'm not. If Tuna wants to go out with Cronus, then that's his choice and that's okay."

"But Cronuth ith a douchebag!"

"Watch it, Sollux. He's not, and he and Mituna will be fine. Now stop worrying and go bug Eridan instead," you say, playfully nudging him and you finish up with your sandwich and start putting the materials away.

When you turn back, he's still frowning, but looks kinda of guilty.

"What's wrong?" you ask, raising an eyebrow?

"Nothing," he mumbles, then leaves the room. You shrug and take your sandwich into the dining room, then eat it, wondering what's up with Sollux. You were kidding when you told him to go bug Eridan, but he looked guilty for some reason. Maybe something happened between him and Eridan?

You'll let him figure it out. Once you finish your sandwich, you put your plate away, the wonder what's taking Orpheus so long. It's been hours now. Maybe you should go check on him, if it gets to be too long. Maybe in an hour or two, if he's not back yet, you'll go to the town hall and check on him.

Meanwhile, you'll hang out and watch TV or something.

Your name is Cronus Ampora, and you're pretty damn happy. You just went on a date with Mituna Captor, the apple of your eye. You don't completely understand that saying. Maybe the honeybee of your eye, since he likes bees so damn much. You're overthinking this.

Back to reality. You're in Mituna's room now, chilling with him as he plays games on his phone and looking over his shoulder. It's nice, sitting here with him.

Well, it was nice until Sollux burst in. He seems to be angry, but struggles to contain it as he leans against the doorframe. "Tho. I heard you two went on a date," he says casually, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, vwe did," you answer just as Mituna says, "Maybe we did, what'th it to you?"

Sollux sighs and says, "Tuna, you did actually want to go on thith… date with Cronuth, right?"

"Yeah. If I didn't want to, I wouldn't have gone, Thollux," Mituna snorts to your right, having paused his game and now looking up at Sollux.

Then Sollux turns to you, a frown still on his face, "And you won't do anything he'th not comfortable with, right?"

"For fuck'th thake, Thollux, I'm fine, trutht me! You don't need to worry about me," Mituna mumbles, then goes back to his game.

"Oh," Sollux says, the frown disappearing, then he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him.

You sigh and sneak your arm around Mituna's shoulders. He notices, and snorts, but doesn't look up from his game.

You wonder how Eri and Sollux are doing. Hopefully they're getting work done, unlike you and Mituna. Then you wonder how your father is doing. You don't think he's back from the town hall yet, otherwise he'd probably come in and say hi. Eh, you'll let someone else deal with it. You have a nice cuddle partner under your arm right now, so you're good.

Your name is Orpheus Ampora, and you don't know how long you've been tied to this chair in this room in… the town hall? You're really not sure where you are. But anyway, you don't know how long you've been here. Could be minutes, hours, days, even years. Well, probably not years.

The Asian lady hasn't returned since she asked you a bunch of questions. Maybe someone will come and rescue you before she kills you or something. Hopefully she won't kill you. Maybe Cronus and Eridan or will. Or Simon. You'd prefer Simon. You mean. What. Haha, what?

No, okay, you're being completely honest with yourself, you would like it if Simon would rescue you. Sollux and Eridan would be too busy to rescue you, and Cronus and Mituna are doing… god knows what. And you know Simon went to work after you left, although he might be back by now? You're really not sure. You really, _really _hope he comes to rescue you.

Ahem. Where were you? Right, you were focusing on waiting for someone to come in. You don't know when you're going to see anybody next-

Well, speak of the devil. At the moment, the very devil himself walks in.

Mayor English.

Oh, how he's changed in the years since you've met him. He was younger, for one. And when did he start wearing that ridiculous green coat that makes him look like a rich douchebag? Wait, that's what he is, never mind. He's bald, and seems to be missing a few teeth, along… with one of his legs. You don't think that was a thing before. And he still has the greenish tint to his skin- it's not a really obvious green, but in good lighting he almost looks like he's sick.

He glares at you as he walks in, using a cane- ha- as a crutch as he hobbles over to you.

"I see you haven't gotten any older," he sneers at you, leaning on his cane and looking you right in the eye.

You get right to the point. "How can you see me?" you ask formally. Time to put your business mask back on. This is all purely business stuff.

"That rope my lovely assistant tied you up with is… special rope, I'm sure you've noticed. Not only can it keep ghosts at bay, but it makes ghosts show themselves to all humans," he says, shifting around. Behind him walks in the Asian lady- the one from earlier- carrying a chair, which she puts down behind Mayor English. He sits down in it slowly, then leans the cane against one of the arms.

"I see the years haven't been treating you well," you allow yourself a small smirk for a second, then wipe it from your face. Gotta stay professional.

He glares at you again and replies, "Shut up. Let's get to the point. I hear you've come to assassinate me."

Oh, you'd forgotten about the lie you made up. Wow. Well, you've dug this hole, might as well dig it a little deeper.

"Yeah, I did, because I don't like the way you rule _my_ town," you snark, leaning back in your chair.

While you were still alive and he was still young, one of the things you two would fight about was the town itself. Well, you two fought about many other things, but who was really in charge of the town was a big issue. He may have been the Mayor, but not a lot of people liked him. Most, if not all, of the town liked you a lot more, and so you two fought about this a lot. You had the favor of the people, he had control over the people. It's… complicated.

So that might be why he whaps you in the side of the head with his cane. You'd forgotten that pain was a thing- well not really, considering how many times Assistant Lady slapped you- but you let out a yelp that Mayor English looks pretty smug at.

"Why are you coming to assassinate me?" he repeats, staring you down. Well, the best he can from his height, anyway. People say you get shorter as you grow older. That's true, you can see that now.

"Why not?" you answer, thinking it'd be best to avoid the reasons for now.

He grumbles, glaring at you and saying, "Why. Are. You. Going. To. Assassinate me?"

"Because after all these years as a ghost, I realized my true mission in the afterlife on Earth was to inact my revenge on you for all those years we fought," you bullshit your way through your answer.

He squints at you. "Are you being sarcastic with me, boy?" he asks.

"You can't call me boy. I'm a grown man, English. I have kids. Well, had kids. Then we all died," you grumble, glaring at nothing. How long is this "interview" going to go on, anyway?

Your name is once again Simon Captor and you're worried. Seriously worried. It's been an hour since you promised yourself that in an hour you would go check on Orpheus if he wasn't back by then, and he isn't back. Sigh.

You call up into the house, "I'm going out to look for Orpheus, don't be worried, I've got everything under control. Bye!" And like most story clichés, you definitely do not have everything under control.

You quickly pull on a jacket before leaving the house, on your way to the town hall. You have no idea what shit Orpheus has gotten himself into, but it had better be worth the time.

When you get to the town hall, you go in to see a nice-looking lady at the front desk. "Hello, I'm looking for… uh… the town history?" Town halls usually have some little history museum bullshit.

"It's right down that hall, just follow the signs," the lady answers, smiling at you and pointing to said hall.

You smile and thank her before walking down the hall, then deciding it would be a good time to wander around until you find the right room. Or until you run into Orpheus, whichever comes first.

There are signs everywhere, pointing you in different directions to the "Town History Museum" or the "Secretary's Desk" or the "Town Records"- hey wait, that one sounds pretty useful. Well, you're supposed to be finding Orpheus, but it wouldn't hurt to peek into the Records while you're at it. One of your jobs is to find out how they died, although you doubt there would be any papers concerning their death, you could at least see if there are any papers at all on them.

You follow the signs to a dimly lit room, inside which there are too many shelves to count. Like bookcases, but with boxes on them. They seem to be sorted by letter, so you start with A for Ampora.

Ampora, Ampora, Ampora… you look along the A shelf. There doesn't seem to be anybody else in here, so that's nice, although you can't help but feel like you're being watched- oh hey look, there's the Am-Az box. You doubt there are any Az's, but whatever.

You pick it up off the shelf and pull it down, putting it on a nearby table. Now, to find the Amporas. Ah, here we go.

It's a small file, with a few papers in it, but they're probably worth reading.

Inside are some birth certificates, one for Cronus and one for Eridan once you read the names. Then, oh what are these…? Divorce papers? You look through them, and they seem to be between Orpheus and some lady you don't really care about. So that's what happened to his wife. Checking the birth certificates, you see that she divorced him right after she had Eridan. That's pretty shitty. You wonder if she even cared that they disappeared. No, she wouldn't have found out, the town kept it under lock and key. Then again… hm… you go through the rest of the papers, but none of them say anything about the disappearances, or the deaths, although some of them are to buy the plot of ground the mansion is built on, which could be interesting.

All-in-all, this going through the records thing was useless. Great. You probably wasted a good half-hour in here. You sigh and put the files back, then put them back on the shelf. Now you get to wander around some more and get lost.

You walk over to the door and try to open it when you find that it's… locked?

Huh.

It wasn't locked when you got in.

That's your last thought before something hits you in the side of the head and everything goes dark.


	16. The Chapter Where More Stuff Happens

I'm sorry this was so late you guys D: I have no excuses. None. Well, except maybe school. Okay, well, enjoy this chapter, and I once again apologize for the chapter title. I am a lazy baby. Enjoy! (:

16. The Chapter Where More Stuff Happens

Your name is Sollux Captor and you're feeling pretty bad, which might be an understatement. You maybe overreacted and maybe punched Eridan in the face and then maybe left him on your bed unconscious. Maybe.

So after speaking with people who didn't seem as upset about it as you, you go back to your room to look for Eridan.

Not that you need to look for him- he's in the same exact place you left him, on the bed, knocked out cold. On one hand, you feel really bad for knocking him out. On the other, you didn't even know ghosts could be knocked out.

He isn't stirring from where he is, so you pick him up and move him onto his back, then put the covers over him. Time to play doctor. And no, not in a sexual way.

You're sure there's a first aid kit SOMEWHERE in this stupid bathroom… oh, here it is. Okay. You go back to Eridan and sit down next to him, glaring down. How dare he lie there, unconscious. How dare he.

Anyway, you check to see where you hit him- oh shit, that's a nasty bruise. How does this even work? He's a ghost? He shouldn't be bruising or knocked out or anything? Ugh, whatever.

You grab a cloth and put it on his forehead, because you've seen people do that in movies and that looks good. You wonder when he'll wake up. Will he wake up? Oh my god, what if you killed a ghost? You'd die. Mr. Ampora would kill you, probably, and then kill your ghost. Probably.

Wait, time to stop worrying, he just twitched, he should be okay. Now what do you do? Do you just… wait here until he wakes up? You can go somewhere else, but maybe he won't wake up for hours.

You think you'll wait for him.

Your name is Simon Captor and your head hurts. Well, that's an understatement. You feel like you got knocked out with an aluminum baseball bat. Which you probably did, actually.

Where are you?

Well, you don't have a blindfold on, even though you have a gag in, so you can look around you. The room is dark, the walls are stone, and you can't see any furniture. You're tied to a chair, and your hands are tied behind it… wait, there's something against your hands. Is that another pair of hands? Shit, is there a dead body behind you?

Upon further analysis, you figure out that your hands and this stranger's hands are tied together by the wrists, but this stranger is… alive? You think? The person's hands seem to be moving around, as if trying to get free, but they're cold. Like, ice cold. Alright alright alright alright.

You try speaking, but you have a gag in your mouth, so that's a moot point. Noot noot.

What is with all these memes in your head? You should get that checked.

Anyway, you hear muffled noises from behind you, and assume that it is the other person attempting to communicate. You try to keep your hands away from the other person's, because seriously, it's not that cold in here.

Suddenly, an old man appears in front of you. And when you say old, you mean he makes Dumbledore look young. He's also smirking at you, which is kind of creepy.

"Hello there," he says, and you scowl because you can't reply, you have a gag in your mouth, what was he expecting out of this? "Oh right, I forgot- you can't talk," he smirks. What a dickhole. You can angrily grumble through your gag, though.

He calls this lady over and she's nice enough to take off your gag for you.

"What's going on?" you growl immediately, glaring at both of them.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" the old guy's smirk widens.

You give a look that says, "Figure it out, asshole. I asked for a reason."

He rolls his eyes at you, then replies, "Ah, yes. Well, we found out you and your children were snooping around in our old files, weren't you? You were looking for information on the Ampora murders. Well, there is none, so there. Then we find none but Orpheus Ampora himself walking around in the Town Hall- well, we just couldn't help it!"

"Couldn't help what?!" you ask frantically. Fuck, what did they do to Ampora?!

"We captured him, of course. Why, he's right behind you," the old guy leers at you.

You freeze. Fuck, has Orpheus been behind you all the time? You tug questioningly at your wrists, the rope bonding you to this unknown person- who you think is Orpheus- and there's a muffled answer, and whoever it is is also tugging at the rope. So it is Orpheus, okay. Well, they could've done worse to him, you suppose, than tie him to you.

"Why can't you just let us go?" you ask. Now you're just stalling. If only you two could use your hands to untie the rope… you don't think that's how it works? You don't think wrists can turn that way.

"That was a stupid question and therefore I'm not obligated to answer it," the old guy answers- wait a second, you think you recognize him… isn't he that mayor guy? The mayor of the town you live in? Oh, shit.

You just realized how far deep you are in all of this.

Alright then.

"What are you going to do with us?" you try a different tactic.

"Keep you here. We're not sure yet, no. But maybe we'll keep you here until you die. Well, you can die, Ampora can… be here forever, I suppose," he replies flippantly.

A thought strikes you and you ask, "How did you see him anyway? Orpheus, I mean. Wasn't he invisible?"

"Well, yes, but my lovely assistant here-" the mayor points to the Asian woman, "-can see even invisible ghosts. It's a gift." He smiles.

Well, shit. You're stuck, tied up in a way you can't escape from, with some lady able to see Orpheus even if he can turn invisible.

Great.

Wait a second, why can't Orpheus just escape from the ropes?

"Wait a second, why can't Orpheus just escape from the ropes?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Again, it's a special kind of rope. Nobody can escape from it," he grins, then continues, "Well, that's enough questions for now. Have fun staying here forever." He then leaves, hobbling along with the Asian woman behind him, who gives you one last look before she shuts the door.

"So. Wanna escape?" you ask Orpheus, tugging on the ropes. All you get in response is a muffled growl. Oh, you forgot he has a gag in his mouth. Well, that makes planning escape a bit more difficult.

"Shit, okay, so we have to get untied first. How… how…?" you trail off, wriggling in your bonds. You have rope around your chest and legs, and they're not attached to the rope tying yours and Orpheus's wrists together. Well, you wanted to be together with Orpheus, but not literally. Wait, what? Why are you thinking that? You can't catch me, gay thoughts!

Back to your situation. Okay, so after feeling around a bit, you figure out that the rope tying Orpheus's chest to the chair is tied at the back, so if you twist a bit- by which you mean a lot- then you can untie him there, at least. And he can untie you. You don't know where you'll go from there, but you'll figure it out then.

"Okay so if I reach towards you, I can untie the ropes at your chest, then you can feel around and untie me, okay?"

Muffled answer. It's an ok then.

You reach towards Orpheus, trying to reach around his hands in order to get to the knot on the rope. Well, you wanted to hold his hand, but not like this. Not like this.

With a lot of leaning forward and pushing your hands back, you can finally reach the knot. You're not sure if you can even get it undone without looking, but you do your best. Okay, so it feels kind of like… a bow? You think? You tug on one of the end pieces and sure enough, it comes undone. Huh.

Then you pull at it so it falls off. Boom, easy peasy.

"Okay, so can you reach me now?" you ask, but Orpheus is already pushing towards you. He scoots his chair back a bit- well, that helped lessen the distance, why didn't you think of that- and feels around for the knot. He touches your back multiple times, making you squirm (your back has always been ticklish) but finally he gets the knot and undoes it, leaving your chest free.

"So I have no clue how to get out of-" you start to say, but he's already at work, twisting his hands up and around to pick at the rope, and you don't even know how he's doing it. Ghosts, man.

He gets ahold of the knot and tugs at it, and you try to move your hands out of the way of his. He quickly gets it undone, and the rope falls. Fucking finally.

You immediately reach forward and undo the rope around your feet, then try and stand up.

Ow.

You've been sitting for too long.

You turn and face Orpheus, who has undone the rope around his legs as well, and he tugs off his gag, dropping it on the ground with an air of disgust. Your gag is still around your neck, and you take it off, dropping it next to Orpheus's.

"So how do we get out of here?" you ask, scratching the back of your head.

"Well, I assume they have cameras in here, so we have to hurry and just get out," he replies, and you nod your head in agreement.

You both walk over to the door and you tug on it, but it won't open. "Goddammit, it's locked," you grumble, turning to Orpheus.

He just rolls his eyes at you. What? Then he- oh. He walks through the door and you hear a jiggling sound, then the door opens, and he's standing outside. That was not one of your brighter moments.

You step outside and you have no idea where you are. Well, you know it's a hallway in Town Hall, but all the goddamn hallways look alike and you're not going to be able to find your way out. Plus, you're sure that the cameras have already picked you and Orpheus up, and Mayor English is hobbling his way along to get you two.

Fuck.

Your name is Mituna Captor and you're getting a little worried. You're still playing your video game, and Cronus has his arm around you, but it's getting late and you haven't seen your father at all. You assume he'd at least drop in to check on you, but he hasn't.

You haven't seen Orpheus either.

Hmmm.

You sigh and pause your game, then set it down and stretch.

"Vwhat's up?" Cronus asks you, raising an eyebrow.

"We should probth go look for Dad," you answer, standing up. He nods and follows you out of your bedroom.

You check your father's room, knocking first- you never know what your father and Orpheus could be doing-, but neither of them are in there.

You spend the next half-hour just looking through all the rooms, but you can't find either of them. Maybe they went out to have fun in town? No, they were supposed to be working on the case… wait, wasn't Orpheus going to the Town Hall to investigate? Did he ever return?

…

Huh.

That's a problem.

"We need to go to Town Hall," you say suddenly, tugging on Cronus's arm towards the door.

"Vwhat? Vwait, vwhat's going on?" he asks, startled.

"Did your dad ever come back from the thing at Town Hall?" you ask him, still tugging.

He thinks for a moment, then his eyes widen, and he gives in to your persistent tugging, following you out the door.

You probably would've run all the way to town if Cronus hadn't stopped you. On the way there he took your hand and tugged you back as you tugged him forward, slowing you down. You took the message and walked his pace instead, your arms swinging and your hand still linked in his.

When you get to the Town Hall, you ask Cronus, "How do we approach thith? We can't jutht walk in and-"

He's already walking inside, and you hurry to follow him as he steps up to the counter and flashes a grin at the lady at the counter. "Hey there doll. I vwas lookin' for the bathroom, seein' as there ain't any 'round the buildin's outside, so do you think you could help me there?"

The girl flushes lightly and smiles, pointing Cronus in the direction of the bathroom. He goes sauntering that way and you hurry after him, avoiding eye contact with the lady at the desk.

Instead of going to the bathroom, Cronus turns and starts walking down different hallways, seemingly knowing where he was going, although you don't think he really does. You follow him anyway, and at least he's slowed down his pace enough to match your calm one.

As time passes, you grow increasingly worried. Where could they possibly be? You speed up your pace, tugging Cronus along until you're just about running through all the identical hallways (gotta go fast), frantically searching for your father until-

SMACK.

You had just run into somebody and fallen to the floor. Ow. You rub at your head and carefully sit up, groaning, and get ready to yell at the asshole that had run into you and- oh my god.

Orpheus and Simon?


End file.
